Updated February 22, 2004
Search engine marketers have long been awaiting changes at Yahoo and MSN. Finally, signs of transition are beginning to appear. I hope to update you with more details directly from both services in the near future. In the meantime, here’s what’s happening at each place.
MSN Loses LookSmart
MSN was to end its relationship with LookSmart in the middle of January, and LookSmart’s information — the former “Web Directory” listings at MSN — did disappear for some users. However, MSN has also occasionally shown them again.
What’s happening?
According to Karen Redetzki, MSN product manager, “LookSmart paid listings may still appear within the Inktomi listings on MSN Search and secondly web directory listings still come from the LookSmart database which MSN continues to have the right to utilize.” MSN is also updating those listings, when necessary.
Featured Sites continue to carry ads sold directly by MSN as in the past, while Sponsored Sites show Overture listings. The MSN Search Featured Sites program allows the advertiser to have links listed at the top of the results page in the main body. While advertisers purchase multiple keywords direct through MSN for the Search Featured Sites program, advertisers can bid on and purchase keywords direct through Overture to get placement on MSN’s Sponsored Sites.
After these, the “Web Pages” section is now generally what you’ll see. This section generally seems to carry results from Inktomi.
So compared to the past (see How MSN Search Works), all that seems to have changed is the dropping of LookSmart-powered “Web Directory” results. However, MSN does continue to allow you to browse directory categories from its home page.
Occasionally, Web Directory listings have also been spotted returning at MSN. This could mean that LookSmart data is still being used. It might also reflect that for some queries, MSN is still using editor-compiled results. These sometimes appeared within the Web Directory area in place of LookSmart results.
MSN Search Beta Launched
Just to confuse everything, MSN Search has also released a new beta version. Gary Price has a short statement from MSN talking vaguely about how what you see there may not the same as what other see of any final version of what MSN does. However, MSN has tended to rollout the “looks” tested on its beta site.
In general, this beta version shows only two main sections: Sponsored Sites above and to the right of the search pages. As with Google, these are paid listings. Unlike Google, these come from MSN’s own internal sales or from Overture listings.
Ads that previously were sold through MSN and put in the Featured Sites area now appear to get top billing in Sponsored Sites. Overture listings then backfill these.
The other results on the page, which have no heading, appear to be those from Inktomi’s crawling of the web. That means they contain both unpaid and paid inclusion listings.
There is no sign that MSN is using any data from the crawler it is developing. That’s not surprising. The company hasn’t said it expect that crawler to be ready any time soon.
Yahoo Gets A Crawler
So MSN has transitioned to using Inktomi results — what about Inktomi’s-owner, Yahoo? The company has previously said that it will use its own results by the end of March, if not earlier. We’d already seen it test Inktomi results prior to that announcement. Now more reports of such testing is coming in. People are also noting that the results don’t always appear to be the same as you might find when comparing to Inktomi results shown on HotBot.
So is Yahoo up to something new? The company won’t make any public comment beyond what it has already said. However, it has said that Inktomi’s crawler is now being renamed “Yahoo Slurp” and references to Yahoo Slurp powering Inktomi are noticeably absent.
Instead, Yahoo Slurp will be powering what’s now called in help pages about the crawler the “Yahoo search engine.”
Expect more news as I get it. Meanwhile, a reminder of recent statements from Yahoo that I’ve covered in past newsletters: