The single reason why Yahoo! has so much traffic to its website is branding. If the name Yahoo wasn’t so well known and synonymous with the Internet quite frankly it would have hit the dead pool long ago. The Yahoo brand has been so ingrained into consumer’s heads that many go to the Yahoo website simply because they remember the name. Many new users "think" that Yahoo is the Internet. For many years, new Internet users that log on to the net for the first time go straight to Yahoo. The reason is simple; Yahoo did a great job on marketing. That’s it, there is nothing else to it.

Yahoo was the pioneer in search and portal destinations along with the (now) nearly defunct Netscape portal. Branding is the only reason why Yahoo is still ranked the number one most visited website on the Internet. In fact, Yahoo’s reach has been steadily declining for nearly five years. Google and Microsoft Corporation’s Live search has been steadily gaining ground on Yahoo.

It takes but a minute to see that Yahoo is on a downhill run to obscurity. Below are reach and page view history reports for the last five years. I generated the reports using Yahoo.com as the baseline and compared it to Google, MSN Live, Ask and Netscape. As you can see both Google and Live are moving up while Yahoo is sinking. You can't argue with facts, it doesn't work.

Reach - 5 year trend Yahoo compared to Google, MSN Live, Ask and Netscape

Page Views 5 year trend Yahoo compared to Google, MSN Live, Ask and Netscape

As you can see the page views is a dead giveaway that Yahoo! is losing ground to both Google and MSN Live.

All Yahoo has going for it, is the name and nothing else. Most of Yahoo’s business model has moved away from search and into advertising. Yahoo is no longer so much as search engine as it is an advertising company and an Internet destination popularized by its name. The Yahoo search business in my opinion is one of the best-kept jokes on the planet, and for several years, I might add.

Why do I say that? I have a unique perspective on Yahoo’s search traffic. I have published online magazines and content sites since 1998, and I have watched search engine referrals on our many destinations for years. I see and understand long-term trends. For a good three years search referrals from Yahoo have declined to nearly nothing. Google is of course my main search traffic referrer and has been so for about four years. MSN Live traffic has also increased.

Search referrals February 1 - 18, 2008 - Designer Today

For the month of February to date, Designer Today has had 41,434 search referrals from Google, 753 from MSN Live and only 79 from Yahoo. If Yahoo were as good at search as they were at marketing I would think that the referral numbers would have been much higher, more so than the recently launched Microsoft Live site. That is not the case though and has not been for a very long time.

Yahoo is pulling the wool over its competitions eyes. However, I have unique viewpoint so the Yahoo song and dance does not work on me. Bottom line, Internet users aren't using Yahoo for search.

Anyone that buys Yahoo is only buying a brand name and nothing more. I realize that brand is power and that power has a direct bearing on product sales. The problem is that Yahoo's brand is slipping and Internet users are steadily moving away from Yahoo. I think in five years should Yahoo continue without being taken over by another company will be down to where Ask and Netscape currently reside (at the bottom of the heap).

It isn’t ironic that that Yahoo has moved to advertising and launched (or re-launched) half a dozen half baked ideas like Yahoo Buzz and Yahoo Video like crazy. It isn’t ironic that Yahoo is laying off or firing over 1,000 employees. It isn’t ironic that Yahoo’s page views are declining. Lastly is isn’t ironic that Yahoo’s reach is declining.

The fact is: all Yahoo has going for it is the name.

I would love to read your comments on Yahoo being a brand and not a search engine!

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