In the perennial battle between the two biggest web giants, Yahoo and Google, the latter has been dominating the opposition for quite some time. Ever since Yahoo’s business problems began, many people (myself included) assumed that Yahoo was stuck in second place from that point forward. Turns out I was wrong, and the changes Marissa Mayer has enacted are doing some good for Yahoo. ComScore reports this morning that Yahoo has beaten Google in the latest monthly report.
Yahoo on Top
According to Todd Wasserman at Mashable, this month is “the first time Yahoo has bested Google in this measure since April 2011.” How much did Yahoo beat Google by over the past month? Not a great deal. Yahoo came in at roughly 196 million unique visitors while Google only managed 192 million unique visitors.
Another interesting point from this news is the fact that, as Liz Gannes reports on All Things D, “Yahoo’s numbers didn’t include the new Yahoo-owned Tumblr” which on its own was placed 28th on comScore’s list of monthly sites. Tumblr managed to grab around 38 million unique visitors itself.
So, Yahoo is doing well when it comes to traffic. But should agencies and businesses run back to the service? Sure, Marissa Mayer has been making a lot of changes happen at Yahoo, and its stock price has nearly doubled since she took control about a year ago, but this isn’t proof that Yahoo has been victorious by any means.
Not Exactly a Sign of Yahoo’s Return
Unfortunately, many analysts aren’t seeing this as a sign that Yahoo is back as the powerhouse it once was. First of all, according to Robert Hof on Forbes, the increase in visitors that put Yahoo over Google “is probably due chiefly to seasonal or month-to-month variations.” In fact, the two sites have been very close in recent months and it’s likely we’ll see more of this back and forth in the future.
Secondly, as Robert writes, “These numbers don’t include mobile traffic.” Added to that he states, “Yahoo is widely considered to be considerably behind in mobile.” This is a big problem if Yahoo wants to be dominate (or at least continue to improve) in the future. After all, just yesterday a report came out that globally close to 20% of web traffic comes through mobile!
Lastly, when it comes to search dominance, Yahoo has a lot of work to do against Google. Google still holds about 67% of the search market and has the tools to keep them at that level or better. If you’re a big Yahoo fan, things are getting better, but it’s going to be a long way off before Yahoo returns to the glory it once held on the internet.
What do you think about Yahoo’s performance since Marissa Mayer took control a year ago?
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