Yahoo’s properties have gained overall by Compete’s computations, but the gains haven’t been led by the big name content areas like Search, Maps, or Sports.
Videos represent a revamped area for Yahoo since May 2006, explaining the five-digit percentage gain that area has enjoyed in Compete’s analysis of Yahoo Search Property Trends. It’s been the biggest spike year-over-year for Yahoo.
Compete director Jeremy Crane also noted the impressive gains driven by Yahoo Answers. Its year over year gain jumped 824 percent, trailing only the cartoon-like 21,636 percent boost at Video.
Crane said in his post that Compete’s look comes from a consumer driven data perspective. Who goes where on Yahoo moves the numbers up; but not everything at Yahoo has enjoyed positive traction with visitors.
Search has been covered repeatedly, with Google’s stranglehold on first trailed by Yahoo’s grip on roughly a quarter of the US search market share. By the Compete calculations, Search has remained relatively flat.
Maps represent a lead-in to other areas, like local search and travel. It’s certainly not the only avenue to those properties, but it does feed them. Visits to Maps and Travel have both been off the year over year pace by single digits in percentage.
The decline in Sports could be just February malaise following the end of the NFL season. Yahoo has always offered a lot of content and some very good fantasy games in its Sports section. Perhaps sports blogs and their in-your-face style has drawn away an audience that feeds on ESPN’s panoply of channels and websites.
