Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Yahoo Image Search Loves Flickr

Search Yahoo Images for [google], and 70% (14 of 20) of the results are from Yahoo-owned Flickr*. Search for [google reader], and 100% of results are from Flickr. [horse], 25%. [matt cutts], 70%. [blogoscoped], 35%. (Additionally, all Flickr results will receive a special blue color for the Flickr user name, drawing a little extra attention.)

Not only does this make people stay longer on Yahoo properties, it also gives some additional incentive for webmasters to use Flickr... as a kind of Yahoo search engine optimization.

Flickr of course is an important image resource. But is it that important? Ionut, who pointed out this phenomenon, wraps it up by saying “Yahoo Image Search Becomes Flickr Search.”

(Then again this phenomenon might be self-correcting: the more Yahoo shows Flickr results, the more people stay on Yahoo properties – but the less valuable Yahoo results become, the more people leave Yahoo. To the extent that Flickr-biased results – if that’s what it is – destroy relevance, users may be pushed to competitors like Google Images.)

In other news, Yahoo Images now displays a “related images” box below some search queries. For instance, searching for [sean connery] brings up a box with 5 images, showing “james bond”, “pierce brosnan”, “brad pitt”, “harrison ford” and “johnny depp”.

*Using default search settings.

[Thanks Ionut!]

Yahoo Image Search Loves ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (4+11)

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