Yahoo Keyword Suggestion Tool Blunder
Yahoo / Overture had the default status as THE keyword tool for about a decade. They lost that last year when Google started opening up their data a bit more. Now Microsoft is getting into the game offering more useful tools and more data. How does Yahoo respond? They stop supporting their keyword tool. No results, no 301 redirect, no rebrand, no description of why it is broke, no anything. Since my keyword tool is powered by their keyword tool I am getting 10 to 20 emails a day. How many people are not emailing? How much more traffic is Yahoo getting than I am? Tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of shareholder value are wasted each day with that move.
The best spot to market yourself is on your own site. As long as Yahoo continues to undermine their own assets without regard or thought their marketplace will remain inefficient, and each day they will continue to lose marketshare. They paid $350 million for Zimbra, but what are the odds of them not screwing that up? They have too many half done projects that do not gel together.
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It's a blunder but I'm sure they will try to justify it one way or another. OVT will be now something of the past, besides on the websites were you can by the scraped OVT databases.
For foreign markets, Asian and European countries, Google Estimator will be one of the only tools (that I know of) that can give an indication of potential kw traffic.
It will also be interesting to see how the domaining industry will replace this indicator as it played a role for valuation.
BTW, what's up with all these posts. I thought you were on your honeymoon:)
yeah, i was one of those people not emailing. what the hell do you guys use now?
It didn't take you too long to post again. Good for us.
I think the dumbest part of this for Yahoo is there's no indication of what's going on. The tool just isn't showing any results. Are we to assume it's no more or that it's not working temporarily.
Any kind of information would be better than none at all.
Of course this further explains why their stock price has fallen so much in the last couple of years.
I use a few in combo - we're looking for qualitative data, anyway.
What is Zimbria? I thought it was somewhat ironic that you mentioned them possibly screwing it up and that link returned a 404 error. But since I don't know what it is, I won't rag on them too much.
Yahoo always seemed too blatant in its greed to me. Google is subtler and hungrier. And it's the mindset that determines how the company will perform long- term.
Ebay is strangely quiet. It wasted a billion or two on Skype, but from what I read when last there is tightening the screws on people auctioning stuff. Penny wise, pound foolish. Loads of room to improve, but has chosen to stick with what it has e.g. PayPal, the feedback system. Not sure if it's banned Google Checkout still, but if it has that's a sure sign of desperation.
The mind-set is everything.
I sent an e-mail to my SEM account manager at Yahoo. She did not answered. What the hell...
Hey, my clients are paying you, Yahoo!
I'm going to tell them there's a waste of money, that they should put the money on Google's campaigns only.
I think Yahoo didn't state a reason yet because they're not really sure what they're going to do yet. Should we take it down and piss off the majority of our own community? What are the pros for keeping it up? Whatever the reason, there goes Yahoo slippin down the slippery slope once again.
For them wanting to "kill" Google, they're sure not considering the most important factor of all with this move...tailor to your audience!
Great!
Just because I've complained here, the Yahoo Keyword Tool is working ok, here (Brazil)
Thanks Aaron!
It's working here in the Eastern US now too.
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