What has a lot of old school SEOs a little shocked is the announcement by Yahoo! that they are going to discontinue their directory by the end of the year. What was even more surprising is how they did it, a post on Tumblr instead of linking to the story from the directory itself. In fact, while the directory was “down” for several hours after the announcement, when it came back there was no link, no mention of the news, and it was “business as usual” with the directory.
In a bit of “hilarity” if you attempt to submit your site to Yahoo! they have a redirect in place to just loop you back to the home page. Again, no information, no real “official” announcement. It seems clear that this latest move by Yahoo! just piles on a heap of very poor moves the company has made over the last 15 years.
The “official” statement reads:
Yahoo was started nearly 20 years ago as a directory of websites that helped users explore the Internet. While we are still committed to connecting users with the information they’re passionate about, our business has evolved and at the end of 2014 (December 31), we will retire the Yahoo Directory. Advertisers will be upgraded to a new service; more details to be communicated directly.
Not sure what this “upgraded to a new service” means … maybe they will be rolled over into the PPC section and will customers be given credits for the monies spent over the years to be included in the directory?
Stay tuned.
Leona says
So I just read all of your posts … starting with the most recent. Glad I found your blog..