Long before Google came on to the scene as an Internet search engine, there was Yahoo. Yahoo was the search of choice by many Internet subscribers. It was at a time when the Internet was not bombarded by spammers and marketers. This made creating a search engine relatively easy, because there would not be so many unwanted results. However, with the Internet boom of the mid 1990s web surfers saw a whole new wave of Internet marketing and deceptive tactics on the part of website creators.
At the time that this was happening, Yahoo like many other search providers were relying heavily on automated indexing. The company programmed a set of criteria into their indexing bots in order to make their search engine much more relevant as well as productive. Nevertheless, it was not long before website creators, and yes, scammers, figured out how to manipulate the bots that were indexing their sites.
This manipulation of the indexing process led to search results, which were not useful to the web surfing public. It almost seemed as though Yahoo had given up trying to remedy the situation and their search results fell into a state of utter chaos. Then there arose a search engine from out of seemingly nowhere.
Google was making great strides in combating the search engine manipulation problems. In the early days of the Google search engine, web creators, scammers, and spammers, were scrambling to try to figure out how to manipulate this search engine. As with anything else, they did succeed to a certain extent, but the Google team worked diligently to combat their tactics.
Google’s philosophy in its conception was simple, treat search engine manipulation just as they would a network security issue. As fast as the scammers could find weaknesses in the search engine, Google would then modify their indexing code to combat it. This was why Google became such a powerhouse and rose in ranks so quickly in the hearts of the Internet browsing public.
Yahoo never really seemed to notice this new philosophy and was determined to just let their technology ride the wave to obscurity. Nevertheless, the Google search engine is starting to fall into the same pit that claimed the likes of Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos. It has been my personal experience that while the results offered up by Google are, for the most part, ok, they are starting to fall off into the same state that I saw Yahoo falling into.
The real question is can any company really pull itself back from a state of disrepair? It is my belief that with the right leadership, a clear goal, and a will to be number one again that yes indeed, Yahoo can become the search engine of choice once more. Nevertheless, it will take some hard work and perseverance to do so.
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