The Death of the Yahoo Directory.
I remember when I first got online in early 1999….back then, the Yahoo Directory was the 800 pound gorilla. …today, it looks like it’s going extinct…
In June, Matt McGee reported that “Yahoo Closes European Directories, Says US Directory Is Safe” (apparently yahoo removed these in December of 2009…but no one noticed until June 2010…says a lot for how much the European yahoo directory was used…)
As part of Yahoo!’s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others. After careful consideration, Yahoo! will no longer offer the Yahoo! Directory service on December 10, 2009 in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Users in these markets will be redirected to their local version of Yahoo! Search for a superior experience. Yahoo! is focused on innovating in search and continually improving the user experience.
As for the main web directory on Yahoo.com, the spokesperson says: “We have no plans to close the main Yahoo! Directory.”
Then a few days ago, Rustybrick reported that the UK Yahoo Directory was shutting down on Nov 8th.
And now it looks like Yahoo is shutting down the Canadian directory on Nov 18th as well (didn’t see anyone mention this).
So it looks like they’re just moving everything over to the US directory…and probably will just let it die there… I wonder if the 40 minutes of downtime that yahoo had a few days ago was them pulling all the directory information from their ranking algorthym.
I wonder if Yahoo learned any lessons on what to do with link equity power from their fumbling the power that geocities held.
Anyone else miss the human edited directories?….think there will be a comeback someday?
