Nick's Blog

Yahoo has been losing market share to Google for years, and now is determined to fight back.  In a bold move that surprisingly has garnered zero press and somehow went unnoticed by the few remaining Yahoo searchers, Yahoo has increased the maximum length of description text for search advertisers from 70 characters to 71 characters.

That one character may not seem like a lot, but due to the factorial nature of text strings, it opens up an exponential number of new opportunities.  But despite it’s mathematical awesomeness, I’m not sure how Yahoo expects this change will help them earn back market share.

But this is entertaining.  Search “yahoo” on Google and this is what you get:

But search “google” on Yahoo, and check out the difference:

First the sponsored Yahoo ad begging the user to make Yahoo their homepage. “It’s Easy!”  Then a new search bar embedded in the search results with the Yahoo name bolded.  Looking a little desperate here guys.  It’s almost like “will the last one out please turn off the lights?”

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