Will Yahoo! Be Around in 2012? That is the question in 2011

Yahoo’s recent layoff of more than 4% of its workforce leads one to ask what everybody’s been thinking for a while:

Is this it? Will 2011 be the last year for Yahoo?

Like any good company in trouble, the Yahoo PR department has been trying to put the best light possible on the layoffs (roughly 560 people worldwide):

“Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo! for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace. We’ll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key priorities.

Yahoo! is grateful for the important contributions made by the employees affected by this reduction. We are offering severance packages and outplacement services to these employees.”

One has to ask why these layoffs are happening at all. Search has proven to basically be recession-proof. If Yahoo isn’t cutting the mustard, then the problem must lie within. Unfortunately, with Google, it lies at the top.

The appointment of Carol Bartz to the head position at Yahoo! appears now to have been a mistake that looked good on paper. She’s a no-nonsense money-saver. That’s good. However, innovation and creativity is not her forte. Consequently, the company seems to change its mind almost daily about what it’s trying to be. Apparently, not even Bartz could explain what Yahoo was as a company until very recently.

By turning over its search engine capabilities to Bing in 2010, the assumption was that it would free up the time for many Yahoo! employees to work on new, exciting projects. Apparently, that’s not the case at all. More and more, this appears to be an attempt by Bartz to save some money while keeping Yahoo’s relevance as a search engine alive.

Disgruntled employees are not known for their ability to keep quiet, and Yahoo is no exception.

Tweets and emails to industry bloggers report an atmosphere of a company in “shambles,” and digging a hole from which it may not be able to escape.

Here’s hoping that Yahoo! is able to get its act together in 2011, before it becomes the latest name at the top of a list that includes such past also-rans as Alta Vista, Infoseek, Cuil, etc.

Because quite frankly, if that happens, a lot of us are really going to miss it.

Google Gains on Bing-Yahoo in September, According to Experian Hitwise

Recent statistics from Experian Hitwise reports that search giant Google received nearly 75% of all searches in the U.S. in September. This is a full 1% gain from the previous month, and is remarkable in that the gain was made in the same month that Bing was hoping to cut into Google’s share by adapting its search engine to its new partner, Yahoo!

International Business Times writer Surojit Chatterjee, in his article “Google Rules Online Search Market in September,” says that Google’s gain was substantial, given that searches on Bing gained 2% when the search was conducted on Bing.com. However, Chatterjee says that Bing/Yahoo searches reported a 5% loss. That more than cancels out any gains that Bing.com may have made on searches made to its home site during September.

64 other surveyed search engines split the remaining 4% of the search pie not already taken by Google or “Bing-Hoo.” According to Chatterjee, Bing can be encouraged by the sites intellectual growth. For example, he says that in September, Bing saw its first double-digit sequential growth in the four major categories of Automotive, Health, Shopping and Travel.

Chatterjee could not say whether Google’s release of its Google Instant service helped the company’s growth in September. However, Google stock prices rose steadily throughout the month after Instant’s release.

SearchEngineWatch.com’s Gary-Adam Shannon: White Hat Honesty is almost Never the Best Policy

In a column that many industry insiders may find brave for someone to write, Gary-Adam Shannon has news for White Hat link builders that they probably don’t want to hear. In “White Hats: This is Why You’re Getting Beaten,” Shannon makes this statement:

“With all things being equal, budgets matching and balanced resources, there is absolutely no way limiting your strategy to white hat will ever beat a black hat strategy.”

Shannon goes on to say that combining “white hat” and “black hat” procedures in link building (or Grey Hat) is not only the way things get done these days, it’s the only way things get done. He says someone with a lot of experience in Black Hat can skillfully combine his tricks to make them look white hat.

The stories you hear about black hat link builders going bad, Shannon says, are usually stories about inexperienced beginners. Having an experienced black hat builder on your team is vital in today’s fiercely competitive market.

If the idea of black hat makes you nervous, Shannon suggests creating a new webpage; one that uses black hat techniques. Then compare its performance over your current white hat site. If for some reason, your black hat site get’s tagged and penalized, you still have the white hat side to fall back on. Shannon says your chances of even being caught using black hat techniques anymore are next to nil, due to Google and Bing trying to outdo each other.

Shannon’s main point is that it’s time for link builders to evolve. Or as he puts it, “Life isn’t fair, and neither is the search business.”

John Hargrave: A 10,000% Increase in Backlinks is yours – By Doing Nothing

Everybody can use more links. Now John Hargrave, writing for Search Engine Journal, explains “How to Get 10,000% More Backlinks in Google, Without Doing Anything.” The secret, he says, is Google Caffeine, the search giant’s latest indexing system. Available since June, Google calls it the “largest collection of web content” it has ever offered. Caffeine exercises deeper and more frequent indexing in an effort to provide more up-to-date, real-time results. The backlink increases can be seen in the “Links to Your Site” section in Google Webmaster Tools.

Using his own clients as an example, Hargrave reports an average 10,000% increase in Google-reported backlinks. While this is an average, he provides a partial list of sites surveyed and the changes in backlinks recorded. Increases range from 394% to over 56,000%. This particular instance showed an increase from 5,900 backlinks to nearly 3.5 million backlinks, all in a little over a month.

The real secret here is that previously, Google admitted that it displayed only a fraction of indexed backlinks with Webmaster Tools. Now, with Caffeine, they are able to show a nearly complete list of backlinks. Not surprisingly, Hargrave says, Bing has increased the number of links it reveals to site owners to the 1,000 most high quality links leading to your site. This is a clear step above Google, which includes literally all sites (including spammers) that may be linking to you.