Part of Yahoo’s survival strategy beyond merging with AOL may be to sell of what they consider to be non-core assets for cash. We heard from a source that Yahoo may be quietly reaching out to a couple of potential buyers to see if they’d be interested in their Yahoo Answers property. We filed the rumor away under “ridiculous” until today, when we confirmed with a different source at a major Internet company that they were in fact approached, in a very informal way and through an intermediary, about a possible acquisition.
Yahoo Answers, which was launched in late 2005, is a staggeringly huge site. Recent Comscore stats say the service attracts nearly 150 million monthly visitors worldwide and generates 1.3 billion monthly page views. That’s 67% unique visitor growth in the last year. Yahoo as a whole, though, has nearly 100 billion monthly page views, so it isn’t a material percentage of total Yahoo traffic.
Yahoo Answers doesn’t bring in the premium advertising rates that other properties command, so it isn’t crazy that they’d try to sell it if the price was right. But the logistics of a transfer would be a nightmare – You have to have a Yahoo account to log in, for example. And all the URLs are on Yahoo’s domain name. One of the reasons the service gets so much traffic is because questions tend to get very high search engine placement, so redirecting those URLs properly would be of utmost importance.
There are very few buyers out there that would both be interested in getting those low-CPM page views and would have the cash on hand to make the purchase. So like I said, this is ridiculous on its face, except that we have two independent sources claiming its very much not ridiculous.
Well unless whoever buys it reviews the whole Q&A concept associated with Yahoo answer, this is like buying spoiled meat.
I wouldn’t use Yahoo answer because:
1. The categories are too general and not created by the community.
2. The dispatching process is crap and unprecise.
3. I don’t like waiting for an answer.
…etc
There are many much better Q&A alternatives out there (answerbags.com, muchobene.com, fluther.com…)
A Yahoo Yard Sale!
it cant happen. yahoo login, domain name confusion. yahooanswers will forever be yahooanswers. sounds to me like they are desparately liquidating fringe assets as they prepare to surrender there whats left of there integrity and soul to googl. shame.
at least they can change there branded name to yaho and nobody would notice and it would make more sense.
SellLocator.com- Y 19.02 dollars a share. G 432.60 You get what you Deserve.
This is what happens when you got spoiled rotten.
DeadLocator.com
TC comments are beginning to remind me of digg comments :\
@J, do they self-promote this much? Even without the slightest clue about the the topic at hand? Or even the topic they bring up on the side that is not relevant (yet still have no clue)?
OK. Thanks. I thought I was the only one not following the comments left by a few people (namely the person mentioning sites with “locator” in the names). Nice to know that they were just spammers.
Seriously stop promoting your website so blantantly.
Let your comments and your website be enough without posting your URL all over the place. People are less likley to click on things that feel spammy which is what a post feels like when you put a URL in it. Be interesting, be insightful, be funny but stop with the spam.
There are smart bored people in TC who might get annoyed enough to buy the URL mylocatorsucks.com, seo it so it appears above your site just ot piss you off.
@GS
techcrunch is my homepage. I am as passionate as mike about what i do. go to seesmic and comment and i will go toe to toe with you about any subject matter i post here. know who your talking to before you make frivolous claims. anyone who studies my commentary can see that I appear to know what im talking about. when you have something of substance to promote i would love to see it. drive by haters like you can look at my gravatar and just keep moving. Im not here for clicks, or traffic, see any ads on my site?
trust me there are not a lot of smart people here in regards to search engines and there evolution and the power of multichannel natural language locaton on the net. What you will find here is alot of bubble dwellers, peddlers, spinners and dealers and drive by side bustin comment haters like yourself.
I’ll see you at seesmic when you want to “talk” seriously about anything i do.
EducationLocator.com-because learning is all about sharing.
Never mention serious and seesmic in the same senstence again. You re-invented Yahoo’s direct (circa 1999), and none of us think you know what the hell you are talking about. You jut called everyone in tech stupid because they dont like your directory, screw off.
Facebook could use this to their advantage. tinyCrunch is right.
Disagree – I have asked questions that I couldn’t find the nswer to via Google, and had accurate responses within a few mins of Yahoo Answers. If I can’t get it via Goog, that’s what I use.
google is not always the solution to everything
Yahoo Answers > Google > Wikipedia
-Low Impact Development
I’d post that question on the site itself?
It would be a great news for Yahoo Answers members if it is sold to a new company. Of late Yahoo Answers team is handling the service in the most unprofessional and arbitrary manner. The Terms Of Service of Yahoo Answers is one of the most vague one and users get summarily dismissed from the service for its violation and no reasons are provided except a standard ‘Violation of terms of service ‘. This happens even to users who have spent long time on Yahoo answers and have provided thousands of answers and reached levels 5 or 6. I feel the reason has been that this one of the few services where Yahoo has emerged as No. 1 provider and the Yahoo Answers team has not been able to handle that success. Or it could be that Yahoo is not able to monetize this service as much as it wanted to and hence does not get the best team that it deserves.
But no one can doubt the usefullness of Yahoo answers. One does get great answers to questions.Only if the team that handles this team could be more professional, it would enable thousands of disillusioned content providers to return to the site.
Agreed. Admittedly, I put up something that was only a question in a technical sense under the Politics group that was a cheeky (but not profane or unsubstantiated) barb at one of the two tickets.
It was taken down in less than 24 hours because someone on the Yahoo! Answers team decided it was “chat.”
Which is odd since I didn’t reply to anyone who posted in response to it, and out of the half-dozen or so responses only one was complaining.
I point this out this example only because I routinely see far worse statements (as in they end with a period) posted, as well as provocative, profanity-laden questions that spark flame wars that stay up forever.
I guess it’s not what you say or how you say it so much as how some Yahoo decided to interpret it…
It almost seems like Yahoo-Answers only wants useless flame wars. Informative and useful answers might reduce the number of users who give up on the low quality answers and wind up clicking on one of the multiple “sponsor” links. Low quality content means more money for Yahoo-Answers.
Yahoo Answers is on a sub-domain so technically it could be spun off into a new site and keep search engine rankings.
It’s one heck of a risk to take though.
Thats putting it lightly. “Hell of a Risk” makes more sense.
BuyLocator.com
SpamLocator.
@AK’s lifes work= Bubble Peddler = http://www.webf....net/portfolio/.
Seeing is believing……. right? looks like “a bad case of domainitis” to me.
you have got to be kidding.:) Nice try.
LanguageLocator.com-because “communication” is Everything!
What’s a sub domain?
Is this post serious??? This shows just how out of touch YHOO is and how off-base they are with a business model.
Answers is has minimum expense associated with it outside of servers and basic maintenance. Users create the content…not YHOO. The cost should be minimal. Wait until you throw some AdSense on there YHOO so you can at least faily value the thing. Hire 3 people to optimize the AdSense placements and it’ll exceed whatever metrics you choose relative to you other properties….I promise!
Just goes to prove that YA! isn’t as stupid as everyone thinks.
I am curious to know who those buyers are !
The locator guy would probably buy it.. if he has the dough.
You are a hard worker, Mr Arrington.
First Google closed it Google Answers and now Yahoo follows the league ..
I m wondering .. wether it is the end of knowledge exchange era..
@ Jerry Yang : Yahoo Answers rocks .. i like it personally..
Never had the need to explicitly use the service but have used couple of times through search engine and the answers I found were not that accurate.
Yahoo Answers got 116 million “content” pages into Google’s index which should drive tons of traffic alone. But, as we could see with Lycos Europe this could change very fast if Google decides to sort out such “content” by algo changes. Then you sit on top of a lot of costs (maintaining some quality on the posts) without getting enough traffic / revenue out of it. So a quick sell before a drop out of Google occurs might make a lot of sense.
@Jeff
I am surprised that such a huge number of pages of Yahoo Answers are indexed by Google. Perhaps Google would be surprised to know that Yahoo Answers team does not like links to Google sites in the answers . My account was suspended (even though I was a top contributor ) just because I had put up some Google links as SOURCE in the Yahoo answers. Alongwith suspension mail , I got a message that these Google.com links are AFFILIATE links (I consider myself lucky ,though, to at least get a reason for suspension- most users don’t). I was quite surprised to know that Yahoo answers team considers Google links as affiliate links. To check further I opened a couple of more accounts and put up some more answers with Google links as source – some of them from google custom engines. All the accounts got suspended. I think it can be checked by others also by putting Google links in answers esp links with google.com/custom or google.com/cse and most likely the account will be suspended in couple of days if not hours.
The only rational explanation I could find was that Yahoo Answers team did not like traffic going from their site to Google sites. But it does seem very odd behaiviour from such a big company and a level which I consider very low for their stature.
@Sanjay
That’s weird and foolish indeed. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out http://www.fluther.com
We really value smart people contributing to the community. Plus, we have some neat features like matching questions “just for you” and real-time chat.
Just thought I’d pass along an invite in case you’re looking for a new Q&A home.
Cheers,
Ben Finkel
Fluther co-Founder
Why the heck would YaHoO! wanna do that for? Nowadays, it seems like they are ready to give away the entire company because allegedly Jerry Yang is a “stock FLOP” …lol
your absolutely right. its a yaho yard sale. fine example of a company spoiled rotten.
Do you use right keywords with rightlocator? Dummy spammer.
your a persistant little thing arent you. when people need to have the “right” answer to a problem im sure in the future there will be a right locator to assist them.
AK you promote one of the most ridiculous domain portfolios i have seen. i can see why you keep them hidden. who wouldnt. looks like you bought them yesterday. a majority of consumers and businessess wont link to a crumby domain name sites. your domain names say alot about your character. sorry charlie.
http://www.webf....net/portfolio/
why you wanna put yourself out there like that is beyond me. your woofing up the wrong tree.
DummyLocator.com – finding them before they find you…….its that easy!
Aleksey has 1M times the web chops that you do. You have no idea what CSS, XHTML, or even HTML are. You are not even a script kiddy, or even caple of PHP/ MySQL. Def not ruby, python, and espec not java, c++. You know nothing exceot how to be a shithead spammer and we all wish youd STFU.
If it leaves the Y! network the flow of traffic will die. Lets not kid ourselves. Yahoo.com gets all the traffic and funnels it down to the links on it’s homepage. If you aren’t on that homepage, you don’t get traffic.
I couldn’t see Yahoo selling it, the logistics simply wouldn’t work for the buyer.
You don’t understand how domain masking works, or redirects? Hmm….and you read TC?
If any buyer is thinking of buying Yahoo! Answers, they should check out http://helpshare.com.
and just to add some links to poor yahoo suspended souls
http://answers....08145347AACP3Uw
http://www.answ...#add_answer_box
http://getsatis...my_account_back
http://answers....05062608AA0EPA5
http://answers....29091944AAG8sRJ
I can’t fathom how this would work. The log in, the branding, the URL’s, and the traffic sources are all so tightly tied to Yahoo that I can’t see separating it without losing almost all of its value: It’d have to get a new name with a new URL after disappearing from the Yahoo home page and ask its users to set up a new account…
This is why I think the “Parent Company X” branding is always kind of stupid – it never should have been “Yahoo Answers”. Delicious, Flickr, and Upcoming all thrive without a lame “Yahoo” prefix, and are probably more valuable without it. I realize those were purchases, but Yahoo would do well to let some of its own internal stuff be so independent.
Secondly, this one of Yahoo’s few in house hits of the last few years. They should be making it more prominent and elevating the guys who came up with it to run the damn company, not looking to get rid of it.
i agree. poor strategy, proof yahoo has weak leadership and is like a boat without a paddle. Great comment from Mr. Great himself.
Oh yeah.. poor strategy and you spam strategy locator, good comment spammer.
why don’t techcrunch have a comment rating system ? or a ban system.
i start to feel insulted by the fact that techcrunch allows stupid coments and spam, that just means the blog is targeted to stupid people and im not.
Gizmodo is one of my favorite blogs because of that, excellent comments by banning spammers.
Engadget just modified their comment system to praise good comments.
The only reason i see to allow stupid people comments is because its represent a high percentage of the readers.
alek take another swig of that polish vodka your drinking.
lolec quit trying to promote gizmodo. i would love to see a serious commentary video pit where people put there lips were the comments are. when lolec has a product of substance he would like to share, i would love to see it.
Frank- i would love to see your lifes work. your station of identification. yahope and the tale of the tape speaks for itself. you want us to believe that yahope has it together with this sale or ad pact with google. seriously?
TC is very good about keeping “computer generated spit spam” and i dont see it here at all. TC is a great place for self expression for entrepreneurs and startups. in reality were “all” self promoters, whether it be on the internet or in real life. Everyone is selling themselves in one way or another.
TC is a powerful channel combined with cutting edge user tools to share Insights, creations, experience and potential. Some people stare at the envelope and others push it.
RealityLocator.com
It should be a good indication that you are wrong because locator_dude is agreeing with you.
Yahoo is an OpneID issuer and the new site owner culd support OpenID as a relying party. Alongside, domain masking and the potential to slowly transition the user-base to a new domain, this would be very easy. But, don’t let you minimal understanding of the technical side stop you from making assumptions.
Yahoo answers is one of the good features of Yahoo, I hope they keep them around for a while.
I’ll buy it with my 10,000 points.
Yumio – the original Product Manager for Yahoo! Answers
Dude, you are such a liar. You only have 2,000 points.
answered.com is available for sale. Maybe they could buy that and switch over the content.
Yahoo definitely shouldn’t get rid of this. I always type in a question to Google to see what posts come up and Yahoo answers is nearly always first. Such a great high ranking site that has many uses.
Another bad decision from yahoo. When will they get good CEO?
Maybe someone should ask on Yahoo Answers and get a Yahoo Answer.
http://afewtips.com
Tips for spamming blogs.
Interesting… It’s time for a change
.
Not my cup of tea. Seems like there are a lot of people on there hoping others will do their homework for them.
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Yahoo answers rocks!
It still has so much potential – I would hate to see Yahoo! sell it.
I concur that Y! Answers rocks. I’ve had great success getting valuable inputs from others. Granted, you’ll also get a lot of jokers but I am surprised at the ratio of relevant to irrelevant responses.
Its also hugely entertaining. Its kinda addictive answering posts.
My Hunch…. Google will make a deal with Yahoo to offload Yahoo Answers. Knol is not enough to bear Wikipedia and Google having killed Google Answers, will need something extra to add to its portfolio. Yahoo answers all the way…
SMH.
It will take a lot for them to be able to transfer this to another company, you only don’t worry about how much you are about to spend but ALSO how you will make it work for your company.
Won’t sell, thats my 2 cents.
wow, Yahoo Answer is a crown jewel, very under developed and an area where they have complete leadership
I really don’t think yahoo would sell it. If you can’t beat with services, you need to beat with content.
Have you guys checked out http://minekey.com … a TechCrunch50 participant and an awesome opinion community with far interactive user experience than Yahoo answers.
Search Results
Sorry, no results for “willyahoosellyahooanswers?” in Yahoo! Answers
* Check your spelling and try more general words.
* Ask the users of Yahoo! Answers.
Sell it…….its clearly broken
Answers.com is the number2 in QnA space with Wiki.Answers.com
fakepaycheckstubs com helping you get the loan you deserve!
Wouldnt surprise me! They are probably suffering from teh economy like everyone else.
JIff
http://www.privacy.es.tc
I dunno about international version but Hong Kong version has many idiot questions. However, they’re quite entertaining. lol.
What’s the story with all of these answer websites?
Well that sucks… I use that place a lot.
It’s got a nice interface and works the way it should.
I hope it doesn’t change…
I think Yahoo Answers is the only platform out there that is still working the Q&A model. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been monetized properly, but the fundamentals I think are sound!
User Generated Content + high SEO rankings should equal success! If only they could throw adsense on there….
You know it would have been more ironic if you’d posted this on yahoo answers.
This usually happens right before the repo man pays a housecall.
i wish my whole family girls and women can be a mermaid and boys and men can be a merman.
Earn Rs.2000 daily. No Investment.
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I agree, I cant imagine them selling it although I guess if its not as profitable as their other properties they have to cut it loose like Google did with their answer site.
http://www.answeraddict.com
Yeh well I found a great site for trusted answers go to qanda.encyclopedia.com . All the answers they say are verified.
Great post. There is more news at articleblip.com