Yahoo Inc may be struggling to convince Wall Street of its future prospects, but for the first time its users gave its services overall a better rating than what Google Inc received, according to a study released on Tuesday. Data from the University of Michigan American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) showed Yahoo had seen its customer satisfaction score rise 3.9 percent from a year ago to 79 out of 100 points, while Google's rating fell about 3.7 percent to 78 points.
While Google remains the dominant Web search engine, Yahoo's Internet presence is gaining user approval for its network of Web sites, e-mail, social networks and other features, according to the survey. The positive perception of Yahoo stems from a relaunch of the main site and its various offshoots which are now gaining ground, said Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which sponsored the ACSI report.
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News source: Reuters
While Google remains the dominant Web search engine, Yahoo's Internet presence is gaining user approval for its network of Web sites, e-mail, social networks and other features, according to the survey. The positive perception of Yahoo stems from a relaunch of the main site and its various offshoots which are now gaining ground, said Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which sponsored the ACSI report.
View: Full story News source: Reuters
Pip'
People also seem to forget that it wasn't Google, but Yahoo that began all this stuff.
Competition is good.
but then again in search i think noone can beat google, google gives far more accurate results than any other.
I won't comment on search engine quality, because I don't see any real advantage of either over the other. Google's toolbar tends not to crash as often as Yahoo!'s, but IE7 crashes a LOT more than IE6, making Yahoo! potentially attractive to users who want tabbed browsing, yet prefer to stick with IE6. Then there's Windows Live, which also offers tabbed browsing, but I'd be inclined to say its search results tend to be somewhat limited in comparison with Google's. Of course there's also Firefox, Opera, and a host of other browsers, but methinks it will be awhile yet before the de facto standard loses its dominance to partially functional third-party alternatives, who try to make up for web content accessibility with off-topic plugins.
As far as e-mail goes, there should be no comparison at all. Yahoo! does not offer POP services, and neither does Hotmail. Gmail does, as well as SSL and TLS to help prevent a third party from intercepting one's information. Plus, Gmail doesn't miss as many messages as Yahoo. I understand about 50% of TechSupportAlert's subscribers with Yahoo! accounts don't get anything out of their subscription, because the servers never pick up the messages at all. And the problem is confirmed as being limited to Yahoo!.
And Gmail beats Yahoo! in more ways than functionality and the easily visible advantage of POP services. Gmail offers message retrieval from up to five separate accounts, and forwarding to another (it disables POP if you enable this feature, however). It has customizable filters, aliases, and several other settings. Best of all, it enjoys obscurity and server security. Yahoo! users are constantly subject to data mining, causing their e-mail addresses to be spoofed or even hijacked, their contacts to be harvested, and their inboxes to be flooded with spam messages that use cryptic headers to fool Yahoo!'s simple filter.
Sometimes quality beats quantity, and Google trumps the field in quality. When Yahoo!'s long-time patrons die out, and more and more new users have their attention directed to Google's compelling advantages, Yahoo! will have a choice of offering more competitive services, or simply dropping off the radar. Need I say more?
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