December 26, 2007

2007 In Numbers: Low Traffic Is One Problem Yahoo Doesn’t Have

Duncan Riley

20 comments »

When comScore releases its monthly lists of top performing sites there’s one result that has always surprised me, and that’s seeing “Yahoo sites” ahead of “Google sites.” Google remains the dominant leader in search, but when it comes to traffic across all properties Yahoo remains on top. In November 2007 Yahoo sites tracked 136 million unique visitors in the United States compared to Google’s 131.5 million, numbers that have continued to narrow over the years but ones for which Yahoo still rules.

Breaking down Yahoo’s performance isn’t an easy task; comScore tracks 1084 different Yahoo subsites. As we noted in the Christmas Day email post Yahoo remains the clear leader in online email, but growth there remains low at around 3%. Across the board Yahoo’s growth figures are all over the place. Here’s the top performers for the year based on percentage growth:

yh1.jpg

And the worst performers based on percentage of traffic lost, but not including sites that comScore no longer records traffic for and excluding traffic to Yahoo Photos (that traffic is now going to Flickr):

yh2.jpg

It’s hard to know which numbers to pick when looking at Yahoo’s performance over 2007. This the top ten sites in Yahoo’s network by traffic:

yh3.jpg

The key to fixing Yahoo’s woes in 2007 won’t be finding more traffic and providing compelling content, it should be 100% focused on better monetizing it.

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Comments

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  1. Erick Schonfeld

    Notice the dip in Yahoo Search versus last year. That’s not a good sign.

  2. Spandana

    it would be very interesting to see how much traffic google drives to yahoo sites. in a way, that would like monetizing yahoo sites, no?

  3. Search◊ Engines Web

    Please do a Google/YouTube version of November Unique Visitor graph for comparison.
    Also, how well is MSN/Live doing?

  4. Frank Sinton

    Biggest Yahoo! mistake in 2007? Not buying Facebook. Yahoo needs social networking more than Google, as Yahoo to relies on messaging, communications, and personalization (My Yahoo) heavily.

    Also, are there any metrics on Yahoo! Video?

  5. Intercon

    Only leading by 4.5M out of 136M.. too much complacent, will be gone, and once gone, will be gone for ever. Good luck.

  6. Ballmer

    Looking like a better buy everyday!

    fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  7. MikeT

    Traffic is the online wealth, so that Yahoo is doing something right and good for them!
    Love its Finance part.

  8. joe

    It’s like Duncan discovered how to make bar graphs and will be punishing us with three every single post he makes.

  9. Clint Dixon

    Anyone notice Yahoo Answers growth compared to last year?

    Google missed that boat……

    Also a nice piece of data missing is Yahoo visitors are on site 30 minutes

    Googles up to what 8 minutes??

  10. Planet Malaysia

    Yahoo is not famous in Malaysia & Singapore anymore…. hehheh

  11. MTom

    I think the numbers are not completely reliable. There is no reference to Yahoo sports which growing gang busters and similarly yahoo movies, omg etc

    http://static.seekingalpha.com.....rts1.1.gif

  12. John McKinley

    As Mark Twain once said, “There are three kind of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Looking at UVs paints a pretty incomplete picture of the challenges for portals.

    If you look at time on site as another measure, the major portals are down materially year-over-year (AOL and Yahoo down 10%, MSN down 8%).

    Here is a link to the October AP story on the issue: http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....ology/home

    With total time on-line flattening, it is the destination sites (FB, TMZ, etc.) winning at the expense of portals.

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  14. Car dealer

    Yahoo Answer is a good weapon for Yahoo to fight with Google. I still remember few years back Google also have such similiar project but failed. I think Yahoo should put more focus on this Yahoo answer and it will definately pay back one day.

  15. tt

    F GOOGLE

  16. Gossip

    i don’t know why but i f i put my website, all my comments disapparead…