Yahoo edges Google in US user satisfaction survey
Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) 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 (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile …
Context & Ripple Effects
Yahoo's higher satisfaction score supplies a counterweight to its earlier retreat from the fight for search dominance and Google's lead in visitor counts. The result matters because it separates perceived service quality from the scale measures that had favored Google.
Yahoo had also introduced real-time search suggestions and targeted-ad tools in 2007, making user satisfaction relevant to both its search experience and its ability to package audiences for advertisers.
First-order effects
- Yahoo gains a concrete consumer-experience metric to present against Google's larger audience, while Google faces a new benchmark on service satisfaction.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo's search and advertising teams have greater incentive to turn the satisfaction lead into repeat usage and advertiser demand; Google has reason to protect its scale advantage with comparable service improvements.
Third-order effects
- The contest between Yahoo and Google is increasingly being judged on two distinct dimensions—audience scale and user experience—so leadership in one does not settle the competitive picture.
The trend: Web-search competition is broadening from traffic leadership alone to a combination of reach, product experience, and advertising execution.