When Will Yahoo! Change?

  • Sep. 29, 2003

I've been debating this for some time. Whether to post an article online explaining my crystal ball theory about when Yahoo! will drop Google in favor of Inktomi results. I've had a date in my mind for some time, but have not been too sure about making it public.

I've been watching the engines for some time now and (I think) I've noticed a pattern in how Yahoo! does things. This led me to speculate on when Yahoo! would pull the plug on Google.

Let me start by explaining the logic behind my theory: First, as you already know, Yahoo purchased Inktomi last year, just before Christmas.

Since Yahoo! has had Inktomi for almost a year now, I figure that shareholders are starting to get a little fidgety and want the company to start monetizing its purchase. Therefore they want to do something as soon as possible. We've already seen proof of Yahoo!s gradual shift from Google, by testing Inktomi results recently on all portals, including the US portal.

So on to my theory:

Since Yahoo! owns Inktomi, and the likelihood that they are probably under pressure to monetize the search, as I mentioned above, I feel that the date they do the switch is nearer than many people think. This is why we've been emphasizing the importance of preparing for the switch.

Yahoo! generally tends to make changes on Tuesdays. Not sure why that is, just something I've noticed. Further, they don't perform major changes to their portal until after their quarterly earnings reports come out. In the past, they've done major changes (such as changing from Inktomi to Google 2 years ago, or when they announced the Overture purchase) after the quarterly reports have been released. The next earnings are due to be released the week of October 6th, 2003. If they release results on Monday or Tuesday (as has been the case in the past), that gives the markets a full week to respond and react to their earnings reports.

Therefore the next week, the week of October 12th would be a good week to make a change, and since the change shouldn't happen until Tuesday, that brings us to Tuesday October 14th.

They can't realistically do the switch any later, because there won't be another earnings report this year, and as mentioned above, I would expect that they'd want Inktomi to start earning money before the end of the year.

At least this is one time where I can say "only time will tell" where the time period is relatively short.

Rob Sullivan

Production Supervisor
Searchengineposition.com
Search Engine Positioning
specialists



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