October 25, 2007

Yahoo Shares Some Link Love From Its Homepage

Erick Schonfeld

25 comments »

Yahoo’s most valuable property is still its homepage. It drives tons of traffic to any site it links to. That’s why all the links on Yahoo.com either go to other Yahoo properties or to Yahoo partners. Until now. Starting today, visitors to Yahoo’s homepage will start to see links going to blogs and media sites that don’t have a syndication deal with Yahoo. These include VanityFair.com, Salon.com, SFGate.com, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo. (Disclosure: TechCrunch’s sister site CrunchGear was included when Yahoo was beta testing this feature). The sites are selected by human editors at Yahoo. The criteria, according to a Yahoo spokesperson is this:

Yahoo! will select outside content from a wide variety of sites across the Internet (large and small, with sufficient traffic management capabilities), that have unique or exclusive content which will be programmed alongside our usual links to related Yahoo! content.

So far, these links have been sporadic. But if they become a regular part of the homepage, it should help Yahoo in its mission to be a trusted filter for the entire Web. (Not that those syndication deals are going away).

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reyonthehill

October 25th, 2007 at 8:11 am

Yahoo! and SFGate.com have an advertising deal in-place, as well as a job search deal through HotJobs.
Bruce Judson

October 25th, 2007 at 8:35 am

This is exciting news: both because it adds value to the Yahoo! start-page and because it brings us back to Yahoo’s roots–when it helped people discover new and exciting sites on the Web.

Is there a place where sites, that believe they are particularly innovative or useful for Yahoo! readers, can apply for placement to the human editors who make the link decisions?

Bruce Judson
Founder, Search Free Apps
http://www.SearchFreeApps.com
Jessica Mah

October 25th, 2007 at 8:38 am

I think it’s important to bring in other exciting websites!

The old days… didn’t Amazon get their first boost of traffic from Yahoo after being listed on the homepage?
Jeremy

October 25th, 2007 at 8:56 am

Yahoo Australia’s home page has been linking out to magazines since the yahoo seven merger / acquisition took place. Though those links were to other sites owned by Yahoo…

Given their “lack of cool factor” (eg, myspace, facebook, google, and amazon are all cooler these days) I think they can & will be more flexible in what they do to try to recapture that.
SEO Mash

October 25th, 2007 at 9:14 am

Let’s see how long it takes for Google to drop Yahoo’s PageRank now
Michael

October 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am

> should help Yahoo in its mission to be a trusted filter for the entire Web

I doubt that adding a couple of (paid? partner?) links to something that is essentially a Web 1-style portal will help in that endeavour

–
http://viibee.com, online dating is fun again
Greg

October 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am

Didn’t Yahoo! used to have a content-sharing agreement with Gawker Media, that they didn’t renew? I wonder if one/both of the parties killed that deal because this one was coming. Knowing that something like this was in the works, I could see it effecting negotiations.

Also, good on you for the disclosure. Not because it’s actually a conflict of interest that I’d be worried about, but it’s good to see that transparencyis alive and well. It shows respect for the readers, and it’s a good part of how I discern good journalism from bad.
Shawn

October 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am

@Jessica (3): yes, amazon did get a boost in ‘95 from the Yahoo “What’s Cool” feature. Details here:

http://www.commonwealthclub.or.....peech.html

Jeff Bezos: “A big piece of this came from being listed on Yahoo’s What’s Cool site, which in 1995 was very important. Yahoo, of course, is still an extremely important site, but in particular, the Yahoo What’s Cool page was a big deal back then. We got an e-mail message from Jerry Yang, who is one of the chief Yahoos – but at that time that title hadn’t even been created and it was still mostly a hobby – and Jerry said, “We think your site is pretty cool; would you like us to put it on the What’s Cool page?” We thought about it some, and we realized it might be like taking a sip from a fire hose, but we decided to go ahead and go for it.”

More details at the link…
Dan Schawbel

October 25th, 2007 at 9:40 am

This is smart especially as a competitor of google.
Shafqat

October 25th, 2007 at 9:49 am

Agree with #6. I’ll assume there is no financial incentive for Yahoo, but regardless, I don’t think it makes Yahoo a more ‘trusted’ filter. Since these are chosen my a few human editors, its more a filter for content that those editors think is interesting or relevant. Doesn’t really say anything about trust or credibility. Either way, I’m glad to see it Yahoo go in this direction.
Marc Fiszman

October 25th, 2007 at 10:01 am

Eh? How does Yahoo picking some large, mainstream sites to put on its home page make it a “trusted filter”? (And for the entire web, no less!)
Uhhh..

October 25th, 2007 at 10:19 am

@9: Yahoo! is a marginal competitor of Google, in the same way that a WalMart competes with the world’s most profitable hardware store. Last time I checked Yahoo! has market position in every single category except one.
anuj

October 25th, 2007 at 11:03 am

How would they sort out exclisive content websites from the pool of millions!
john

October 25th, 2007 at 1:38 pm

How much traffic could a site receive, how many clicks for a homepage link on Yahoo? I’m guessing a ton. I’m wondering if some smallers sites at Yahoo’s homepage it might crash their servers…does Yahoo inform sites they are going to feature?
Steve Ballmer

October 25th, 2007 at 2:46 pm

Yahoo shall soon know the joy of being an MS partner too!
muahahahahaha

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Voices

October 25th, 2007 at 5:01 pm

Sounds like a great way to bring the mainstream into niche sites. Can’t wait to see some daily traffic numbers for sites that get featured.
TG

October 25th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

@John: I’m wondering if some smallers sites at Yahoo’s homepage it might crash their servers…does Yahoo inform sites they are going to feature?

Yup! A server I maintain that rarely gets much traffic at all got its knees broken today. The link was actually one click off the frontpage — that top box had a story, one of the links led to a list of articles on the topic, our site was the first one. Boom. I suspect others will receive similar “gifts”… hopefully better prepared than us!
TG

October 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Oh — and our warning was essentially us getting knocked offline. Unless they contacted someone who didn’t tell me, which seems possible but unlikely (I can’t see Yahoo actually contacting all the sites).
David

October 25th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

Interesting.

I wonder how that will work in actuality.
Tan The Man

October 25th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Let’s see if the editors do a good job displaying diverse links…
freeadlists

October 25th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

Assuming the links are provided without financial obligation, I’m wondering why Yahoo has decided to link to other websites/blogs on their homepage.

Maybe other large portals such as AOL and MSN will decide to follow suit.
Mohan

October 26th, 2007 at 1:03 am

Lol… Nice… So will Yahoo! lose PR? :D
Ed

October 26th, 2007 at 2:21 am

John, read the article before you post: “Yahoo! will select outside content from a wide variety of sites across the Internet (large and small, with sufficient traffic management capabilities)”
Mike

October 26th, 2007 at 6:13 am

How is Yahoo, going to find the content? Are they going to have a tip line?