Yahoo! Announces Search Engine Update

On March 31, 2005, in the new Yahoo! Blog, Tim Mayer announced that Yahoo! was starting to release its new updated search results. According to Mayer, this was no bologna or April Fools joke, either. Mayer stated, “Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch had asked search engines to provide an algorithm ‘weather report’ in his keynote address at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose last August. We think it’s a good idea too. It is important to have a dialog with publishers who rely on our product to send them visitors and that these content providers provide us with valuable feedback on our search products.”

Well this announcement sure does one-up Google in the communication department. Google updates have not been announced ahead of time and people are usually left wondering if an actual update is occurring. With Yahoo! now making the announcement, SEO’s and other can watch the behavior of this update and analyze it with the confidence that an actual, official update is occurring. A week or so ago, MSN announced that it is inviting another round of Search Champs to come and pound on its software, offer feedback and generally help improve its product from the consumer perspective.

Both of these announcements are geared toward keeping the customer informed of any changes that may affect them and engaging the customer in what their products have to offer. As great of a company and search engine that Google is, the Grand Daddy of All Search Engines could take a few lessons in customer service and customer communications from their competition. Yes, rolling out Google Gulp on April Fool’s Day was amusing, but this really didn’t tell us anything about how they are engaging the public to help them improve their products or sending out a report to inform the public that another update is on the way.

Sometimes a little mystery is good as it keeps the public interested. Other times mystery can be seen as simple disinterest, which may not be the message that Google wishes to send out about itself or its services. Unfair or not, just think about a similar label that Microsoft has had to bear all these years. Does Google really wish to develop a reputation that is similar to Microsoft? Now that Google is a large, publicly traded company, it would do well to bend over backwards to keep the customer informed and involved in its products or services or else its customers may just assume loyalties to those who seem more interested in their online welfare.

Yahoo! has just taken a positive step in this regard. Let’ s see if they can keep up their customer service first approach as this will surely gain them market share in the short run as well as the long haul. And it really is all about the long haul.