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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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Yahoo! Answers and Vertical Search Big Winners from UK Homepage Redesign

July 10, 2006

Last week, Yahoo launched its new UK portal homepage. The new site is said to focus more on Yahoo!'s search, content, community and personalisation tools and to provide better opportunities for advertisers. I took a look at Hitwise data to see how the re-launch has impacted clickstream from Yahoo!. As you'd expect the design of the page has impacted what consumers are clicking on and Yahoo! Answers and several of Yahoo!'s vertical search properties are benefiting.

Since the redesign, Yahoo! seems to be sending more of its own traffic to other Yahoo! properties with these sites becoming more prominent among the downstream sites. Whilst there were 18 Yahoo! properties among the top 40 downstream from the Yahoo! UK & Ireland portal in the week to 1st July 2006 (before the redesign) that number increased to 22 in the week to 8th July 2006 (after the redesign). However, whilst Yahoo! sites are more prominent among the downstream sites, among the top 100 downstream sites from the Yahoo! UK & Ireland portal, there has been almost no change in the number of Yahoo! properties.

The new homepage is designed with links out to various Yahoo! properties on the left hand side of the page and in various boxes featuring content from other Yahoo! sites. The links on the left hand side of the page are in alphabetical order. As you'd expect the top ones are getting the lion's share of traffic.

Yahoo! Answers in particular has been a big beneficiary. The site's share of UK visits increased 12% last week and it became the 34th downstream site from Yahoo! UK & Ireland, compared with 56th the week before. Yahoo! Answers is a new product that allows consumers to ask questions and receive answers from individuals in the Yahoo! community.

Whilst Yahoo! Answers has seen a significant lift, the other properties featured in that left hand column have not seen as big of an impact. The ones at the top of the list have benefited most, including Yahoo! 360 and Yahoo! Cars. Yahoo! UK & Ireland Cars became the 37th highest downstream site from the Yahoo! UK & Ireland homepage, up from 48th the week before and Yahoo! UK & Ireland 360 rose to the 64th downstream site, from 75th the week prior.

The boxes throughout the new Yahoo! UK & Ireland homepage seem to draw much more attention. Shopping, Weather, and Travel have all become more prominent in the downstream sites from the new homepage, some seeing their share of downstream visits more than double since the redesign. Downstream visits to Kelkoo Shopping on Yahoo! UK & Ireland more than doubled, to Yahoo! UK & Ireland Travel were up 43% and to Cars were up more than one third.

Also interesting, Yahoo! Search edged up among the rankings of search engines based on share of UK visits. Yahoo! UK & Ireland Search took the #4 spot, gaining 2% in market share of visits last week. It will be worth watching closely whether Yahoo!'s share of the search market increases along with the new site design.

So far, the launch seems to be a success. The site is easy to use and the use of Ajax allows for easy interaction with the site and fewer clicks to get the desired information. The new site is directing consumers to community oriented sites, in particular Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! 360. Likely more interesting to advertisers is that the site seems to be more effective at directing visits to commercial areas, including shopping, cars and travel.

Downstream from Yahoo!.png