Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s recently appointed CEO, said on her first quarterly earnings call that a local search product is not currently a priority for the company, Search Engine Land reported. Mayer’s background as one of the primary actors in Google’s local search expansion led many to speculate this would be among her plans for Yahoo. Marketers concerned with local search can be certain they won’t have a new set of ranking factors to worry about following Mayer’s statement.
Currently, Yahoo search is experiencing a downward trend related to its market share. Data from comScore shows it has dropped more than 3 percentage points in the last 12 months, as Google and Bing continue to add to their share. On the call, Mayer suggested Yahoo’s relationship with Bing is still a part of both companies’ long-term goals. However, she admitted that it hasn’t produced the value either company initially expected.
As SEO becomes an increasingly important component of web strategies, search market share often dictates where companies direct their efforts – for both paid and organic search. Mayer reported she is “bullish on both search and display advertising,” which could signal a more robust paid search marketing product from the company moving forward.
Within organic search, Yahoo has innovated to an extent in 2012, rolling out Axis earlier this year. The search app enables users to search the web without navigating away from the websites they’re using at the time. Brafton highlighted an update to Axis recently, but Yahoo still has not offered adoption figures for the app.
