As a local search engine, Yahoo has long been the equivalent of an ’80s hair metal band, still squeaking along decades after its heyday.
For the last few years, its only real boon to your local visibility was that it still ranked well in Google for brand-name searches. Even if your Yahoo listing only reflected your Yelp reviews, at least it gave you “review stars” in the search results, which can help impress would-be customers.
In theory, Yahoo was a place where you’d still want to get at least a couple reviews from customers.
No mas.
Now the only reason to get reviews on Yahoo is to impress the five people in your area who use it as their favorite local search engine.
What do you think? Do Yahoo Local reviews have redeeming qualities I missed? (If so, I’ll eat my hat.) Leave a comment!
Hey Phil
We are based in the UK and Yahoo was never the same over I here I figure. Certainly, I would suggest that many web users below 30 would probably not even know what Yahoo is. My children certainly don’t. From a UK perspective it was already dead. It’s now just a bit deader still.
I just don’t see Yahoo ranking for any typical local business queries over here at all. Yelp in many ways is similar. It often crops up but outside restaurants and London it is just not really a huge thing in the UK.
From a citation perspective Yell.com (our yellow pages) is still pretty visible and can often rank 1st and 2nd for local searches (locksmith erdington, locksmith birmingham etc). All other general purpose directories are pretty much dead or dying. There are some industry specific ones that do okay outside of Yell though.
Another nail in the digital coffin for Yahoo it seems.
Here across the pond Yahoo is hugely visible – on page 2 of Google. Oh, and only for branded terms 🙂
Pretty dead, as you said. Yell’s certainly got a place in the world, though.
As a small business owner, I am just glad to knock a review site off the priority list. Its exhausting trying to get customers to review us on sites they have never even heard of or use.
Well-said, Larry. It’s usually worth getting a smattering of reviews on the no-name sites, but of course you’ll want to hammer away at the more-visible ones.
Are the review stars also not appearing for people subscribed to their Yext partnership (paid) service?
Great question, Michael. It appears that they are showing.
Since it’s near-impossible for business owners to do much about negative Yelp reviews, I’m thinking this is a win-win for most businesses. At least now they don’t have 2 nasty negatives ratings staring their customers in the face!
Excellent point, Joy!
I think that the first line of this post is one I’ll be quoting to people who are fretting about their Yahoo listings. Thanks, Phil. That almost made me inhale my tea 🙂
Hehe. I do my best, Miriam 🙂
Ya WHO?
The first line is definitely a killer! I have a feeling that you either love or hate metal 🙂 When it comes to Yahoo!, I really wouldn’t know. I honestly don’t remember the last time I used it.
I plead the Fifth 🙂
Haha 😀 Nicely put!
Phil, are you interested in the upcoming Penguin update by any chance? I am putting together a roundup on the topic. Would love to hear your thoughts on this one too.
Interested?
Cheers,
Nick