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Yahoo, MSN Get Needy 
By: Doug Caverly 2006-08-04 Search engines seem to be having a hard time letting users go. If you search for "google" through MSN, the top portion of the screen fills not with results, but with a suggestion. "Want to search the Web? Try MSN Search," it offers. Yahoo appears to be pulling a similar stunt.
This possessiveness is a little strange, and a little sad. It's as if the search companies just can't bear to see a user leave them for a competitor. Rand Fishkin first noticed the problem. He answered Yahoo's "Want to search the Web?" with "yes, but not with you". "I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for Yahoo!'s engineers to endure search logs that are filled with 'Google', 'Google search', 'search Google' and the occassional -sic- 'myspace' or 'Jessica Simpson,'" Fishkin continued. "I can see how that might get old very fast." Barry Schwartz noted on Search Engine Watch that "Yahoo doesn't do it for MSN or Ask.com, only for Google." He also pointed out that Google and Ask.com don't appear to have picked up this slightly annoying habit. Ask.com actually offered a "Smart Answer that is incredibly useful and relevant (IMO) to this search," Schwartz observed. I think Rebecca Kelley best summed up Yahoo's and MSN's behavior in her response to Fishkin's post. "It's like Yahoo! is the ugly girl who gets excited about hanging out with the dreamy captain of the football team, only to be crushed when the hot captain (aka the user) asks for Yahoo!'s hot friend (aka Google)'s phone number. So sad." Indeed. Tag: Yahoo, MSN Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Yahoo! My Web |  Furl
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About the Author: Doug is a staff writer for SearchNewz, WebProNews, InternetFinancialNews, and SecurityProNews. |
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