And you thought Google favored its own properties? Check this out:
In Yahoo’s new Search Direct feature, 21 of the 26 one-letter alphabet queries show a Yahoo property as the first “answer.” If you type the letter “A,” for example, Yahoo Answers is the featured result; type “B,” and Yahoo Bookmarks is the first answer, and so on through most of the alphabet.
That continues until you get to the letter “I,” where iTunes becomes the featured answer.
In fact, the five letters that don’t show a Yahoo property first are:
- I – iTunes
- J – Jennifer Lopez
- Q – QVC
- X – Xbox
- Z – Zsa Zsa Gabor
In Yahoo’s defense, they do have a lot of content properties, and it makes sense that several would show up on searches like this — Yahoo Finance for “F” (or perhaps even Flickr). But, if Search Direct were to be based on search activity — what people are looking for the most — “F” should probably lead to Facebook, which has been the number one search term for any letter for a couple years running.
When Google Instant launched last year, curious searchers ran similar tests to see what single-letter searches led to in Google’s search results. Those early reports showed that Google pointed to only one of its own properties: Gmail for “G.”
(Thx to SEO-United.de for the tip. Home page alphabet image via Shutterstock.com.)