Yahoo CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Jerry Yang will step down as soon as Yahoo will get a new CEO.

Yang will return to his former role as Chief Yahoo. Jerry Yang is the co-founder of Yahoo along with David Filo.

Yang took office last year in June 2007 as CEO, promising investors and the company to bring back lost glory of Yahoo and advertisers who turned to Google for online advertising needs.

It seems it was one of the worst decisions Yang took in his life.

First the offer of Microsoft to buy Yahoo for $31 per Share, (approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock) was rejected.

Second, Google abandoned a search advertising partnership amid regulatory concerns. Yang was desperate that this deal goes through, but things just did not go the way he wanted.

Yang faced a growing chorus of criticism from investors and analysts as Yahoo’s shares nosedived. Yahoo shares which were trading at over $30 just a few weeks before are now hovering at $10 per share.

Shareholders are unhappy, investors are not happy, and now finally Yang is stepping down.

There are some lessons learnt from this:

1) Even if you are a founder of a company, it does not necessarily mean that you will be good in all the jobs in the company.

2) Yang became emotional with his business. He treated Yahoo as his child. A business is a business and one should not get emotional at any point of time. Had he used his brain instead of his heart, Yahoo would have been sold – and he would have made a lot of money along with the investors and shareholders.

3) One should NOT get too greedy. Yang said he wanted to sell Yahoo “at the right price”. What is the right price? When Yahoo stock price was around $30, MicroSoft offered $31 per share. They were willing to offer even more. That’s reasonable from business point of view. They couldn’t have offered more than that; after all even MS is doing business.

4) Listen to your investors and shareholders. In anticipation that MicroSoft will buy Yahoo, the share price of Yahoo skyrocketed. It was a clear indication that shareholders wanted the sale. But it did not happen.

What have you learnt from this incident?

Many people have asked me this question if creating keyword rich subdomains can help their site in SEO.

Well the answer lies in another simple question – Is your site well optimized for the search engines?

If no – no matter how many subdomains you create – keyword rich or not – its not going to help your site in SEO.

If yes – you might find that some of the subdomains are getting good ranks in the search engines and some are not.

Why? If your site was well optimized and was already getting good ranks for some keywords it may get top ranks for some keyword rich subdomains not because you created a subdomain, but because all the components of the subdomain page *impressed* the algorithm of the search engines.

These components can be:

a) the information provided
b) the uniqueness of the content
c) off page optimization
d) inbound links to the page

So, should you create a keyword rich subdomain?

Now, read this!

Had you NOT created sub domains but instead created directories you would have still got the same results. Just like sub domains, some of the directories would have got top ranks and some not.

It boils down to this:

Whether you create sub domains or directories – it does not matter to the search engines.

To get top ranks – The Site Has To Be Well Optimized!

So what should you do?

My advice is instead of thinking about the seo aspects; take a decision as per the design demands of your site. For example, if you are starting an entirely different service and want to keep some unique information relating to that service/product only, then a subdomain is a better option. You can keep extra information under that subdomain.

But if you are offering only one service or want to tell more about a service to your clients, then creating a directory is a better option.

NOTE: Whatever you do, make sure the subdomain or the new directory is properly indexed by the search engines.

What do you prefer? Creating a subdomain or a directory?

Are you an advertiser with Yahoo Search? If yes this news will benefit you. HOW?

First the news.

In June 2008 Google and Yahoo announced an Ad showing deal where Yahoo was to show ads of Google Advertisers in their search and partner results.

However it wasn’t a smooth ride as some advertisers and government regulators raised concerns about the deal. Here are some threads of webmasterworld that clearly shows webmasters were concerned over the deal:

Yahoo and Google announce advertising deal

Microsoft Wages War Against Google-Yahoo Ad Deal in Washington

Google Yahoo Ad Deal In Doubt Over Potential Antitrust Restriction

Apparently it seems there were too many road blocks that Google ultimately called it off.

Google in its blog says:

Quote:

However, after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was disappointed Google didn’t fight harder for search deal.

It’s easy to understand why Google wasn’t interested in the deal but Yahoo was. It would have given Yahoo more dollars in terms of Ad revenues simply because for many searches – especially the long ones – Yahoo just doesn’t have enough inventories to fill ads. (The deal was supposed to bring Yahoo $250 million to $450 million in additional operating cash flow in the first year. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/technology/companies/07google.html)

Yahoo has a lot of advertisers in the news, sports, and finance and entertainment categories, but for others it really needs a lot of inventory to fill ads.

The deal was a boon to Yahoo, but not for Google. Secondly because of the concerns it was generating in the advertisers community it was better for Google to call it off – so it backed out.

Now Yahoo advertisers will stand to gain because of this. Why?

First, Yahoo will feel a bit insecure and that would be reason enough to make Yahoo work harder and try to be a better search engine. A proof is the letter Yahoo sent to its advertisers once the deal was over.

Quote:

In short, even in the absence of a commercial agreement with Google, we intend to become an ever-stronger player in online advertising. Our certainty on this front comes from the progress we continue to make in many areas, not the least of which are the significant innovations we’re making in search. We continually optimize our algorithmic and sponsored search. In fact, in 2008 alone, we have developed and launched hundreds of improvements to our search engine, including index expansions and updates, ranking models and performance tuning. Each of these features is designed to improve search quality and deliver a more relevant search experience to our users.

Secondly, due to more advertisers the competition would have increased leading to an increase in keyword bids. It is a well known fact that those who cannot afford Google turn to Yahoo for online advertisements.

An increase in bid prices would have been a setback to small advertisers.

Thirdly, since Google advertisers pay more per click, it needs no rocket science to assume that Yahoo would have shown Google Ads first before showing their own ads pushing the Yahoo only advertiser’s ads to well below their current position resulting in lower clicks. Poor Yahoo advertisers would have then paid more for less clicks.

These are the reasons I think Yahoo advertisers stand to benefit because of this no-deal.

Though I feel Google advertisers, especially those who do not advertise in Yahoo, would have benefited from this deal. Unlike Yahoo advertisers they would have paid the same for more clicks and would have had an opportunity to know how their campaigns were faring in Yahoo if they had analytics in place.

For some strange reason, even Google advertisers were not happy with this deal as is mentioned in the Google blog. I think the reason why they were against it is that most were already advertising in Yahoo and felt no reason to advertise the same ads in Yahoo through Google and essentially pay more per click. (It’s a well know fact that advertisers are willing to pay more per click in Google than in Yahoo.)

Are you happy that this deal is now over?