First, Yahoo will have greater freedom to explore other search platforms. In the past, Yahoo was rumored to be seeking a partnership with Google, and under the new terms, Microsoft and Yahoo’s partnership will no longer be exclusive for mobile and desktop. Under the new agreement, Yahoo will continue to serve Bing ads on desktop and mobile, as well as use Bing search results for the majority of its desktop search traffic, though the exact number was undisclosed.

Microsoft and Yahoo are also making changes to the way that ads are served. Microsoft will now maintain control of the Bing ads salesforce, while Yahoo will take full control of its Gemini ads salesforce, which will leave Bing free to serve its own ads side by side with Yahoo search results.

In a prepared statement, Yahoo chief executive (CEO) Marissa Mayer said the new agreement will be an impetus for innovation. “Over the past few months, Satya [Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corp.,] and I have worked closely together to establish a revised search agreement that allows us to enhance our user experience and innovate more in our search business,” Mayer said. “This renewed agreement opens up significant opportunities in our partnership that I’m very excited to explore.”

Still, Yahoo is down more than a percentage point year-over-year (YoY), with July 2013 showing search share at 11.3 percent.

Yahoo’s chief executive (CEO) Marissa Mayer has been under fire lately by one very vocal shareholder at Forbes.com, Eric Jackson. Jackson argues that her compensation is not linked to performance, and the fact that Mayer has been selling shares of Yahoo stock sends the wrong message, he says:

As an investor – and if I was an employee – I want all a CEO’s net worth tied up in a company. I want them to feel like their future wealth and reputation depends on their current company being really successful. I think it sends the wrong message to employees to be selling $650,000 in stock every two weeks for walking around money in your pocket.

For its part, Google saw a 0.2 percentage loss from June in July at 67.4 percent, but this is still 0.4 percentage points higher YoY for Google.

Bing showed a 0.1 percentage climb to 19.3 percent share in July, which puts it more than 1 percent higher than this time last year. Fortunately, in July, both Bing and Yahoo saw a slight climb, which suggests they weren’t trading market share, which has been an outcome in the past of the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal.

In addition, Ask showed a 0.1 percent decrease in share in July to 2.0 percent, which puts it at a 0.7 percent loss YoY. AOL held steady at 1.3 percent share in July – a 0.1 percent increase YoY.

Studies have shown that up to 80 percent of readers never make it past the headline, making it at least as important as the content itself. Given the importance of headlines to content marketing success, we did a study at Conductor (disclaimer: I am the director of research at Conductor) that examined how distinct headline types resonate with readers.

Our findings showed that number headlines (e.g., “30 Ways to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful”) resonated most, followed by reader addressing (e.g., “Ways You Need to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful”). More on what we think that means in a bit.

Are Readers Developing Headline Fatigue?

The research shows what savvy content marketers already know: that readers have definite preferences when it comes to the headlines they click. In fact, sophisticated marketers test multiple headline versions prior to publishing to discover the one that performs best.

Deeper insight into reader headline preferences is a good thing for marketers – it means they can discover what works and what doesn’t and that knowledge can be leveraged to drive clicks. But, there may also be a downside to knowing that number headlines and superlatives induce the greatest click.

How many “Amazing,” “You Won’t Believe!,” and “6 Ways…” articles can readers tolerate before they reach headline fatigue? Are we, as content creators, in danger of immunizing readers to strong headlines because of how frequently we use them? Or, worse yet, are we in danger of alienating them entirely because of how frequently strong headlines have not delivered on their promise?

Leading Indicators

If a recent satire website launched by The Onion is any indicator, we may already be at that point. ClickHole is a…well, I’ll just let them tell you in their own words what they are:

What Is ClickHole?

ClickHole is the latest and greatest online social experience filled with the most clickable, irresistibly shareable content anywhere on the Internet.

Their tongue-in-cheek self-description is a humorous shot at the sensational content that many publishers crank out in the hopes of becoming the next viral sensation on line. Their site features headlines like:

• Which One of Jonah Hill’s Hands Are You?
• Find Out What Buzz Aldrin, Mark Wahlberg, and Marissa Mayer Have to Say
• 7 Gorgeous Libraries Where You Can’t Be Naked No Matter What

While humorous, the site – and its rising popularity – may be a leading indicator of an underlying fatigue that readers already have for formulaic headlines and those that make promises but don’t deliver. This may mean that content creators and marketers need be aware of shifting reader tolerance for headlines.

Where Does That Leave Content Creators?

If readers are developing headline fatigue but content creators continue to be chartered with driving traffic, where does that leave marketers when it comes to how to approach headlines?

Our hypothesis at Conductor when it came to why the headline types in our study resonated the way they did was that given the millions and millions of blog posts, emails, video, and social content created on the Internet each day vying for our audiences attention, readers are increasingly discerning about the headlines they click on.

The pattern the study exposed, is the clearer the headline was about what the reader will get from the article, the likelier the reader was to click on it. “30 Ways to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful” is the most explicit of all headline types as to exactly what the reader will get from the article, and as a result, it is the most preferred.

Given what the research tells us about headline preferences and what leading indicators like Clickhole say about reader tolerance of headline, we think there are several key takeaways for marketers.

1. Headline Clarity Is Here to Stay

The volume of content vying for your audience’s attention will only continue to increase so the clearer you can be about what your continue will deliver to the reader, the better the chance it will be “clicked.”

2. Deliver on Your Headline Promises or Risk Losing Your Audience

The natural inclination of headline writers is to continuously tack to the sensational to induce click. This can be a slippery slope. Recently, a well-known industry personality wrote an article with a strong headline on which the article did not deliver. Readers skewered him in the comments for the misleading headline and he clearly suffered damage to his credibility. When it comes to headlines, go strong but no stronger.

3. 4 Ways to Balance Your Headlines

Although the research showed a preference for number headlines, you don’t want to overwhelm your readers with listicles (or any other headline type). Be sure to strike a balance with the headline types you use.

4. Content Is a Long Play

True content marketing is about building a relationship with your audience and we must carry that trust and relationship with the respect it deserves. Avoiding the temptation to carry a headline too far will be easier if you keep in mind that content is a long play.

Tell us in the comments if you see other trends around headlines or if your headline strategy differs from the above.

While it has been common knowledge that Yahoo wants to get back into the search game, many believe that Yahoo is just too far behind in order to get any inroads into search. However, Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive (CEO), is looking to attack it head on by becoming Apple’s default search provider in iOS, Re/code reports.

The big question is whether Yahoo has a good enough mobile search product at this time. They had the technology before, but a lot has changed within the search space in those years.

Yahoo’s search execs have left the company, so they would be completely rebuilding. But Mayer has her passion – and roots – in search, from her time at Google.

Mayer has been putting company resources into building a new search product. She spearheaded two projects earlier this year, called Fast Break and Curveball, specifically for the purpose of bringing back organic and paid search back within Yahoo.

It isn’t a stretch that Yahoo should look to Apple if they’re serious about getting to search. When I reported about Yahoo moving into contextual search, I said their key could be becoming the default search engine for Apple products.

Currently, the default search engine for iOS is Google, however users can change the default search engine to Yahoo or Bing in the settings. Having Yahoo set as the default search engine could result in a huge increase in the number of searches, simply because many people don’t bother changing the default search engine. However, you can imagine that Google would put out a strong campaign alerting users how to change to Google in the event Apple does make the switch.

There had been speculation that Bing could potentially replace Google as the default, as Apple’s Siri voice search on both the iPad and the iPhone are powered by Bing. Additionally, the relationship between Apple and Google has soured over the years, as Apple has been removing default Google-powered apps from iOS, including YouTube and the much reported on Google Maps, which caused a backlash from Apple users.

Clearly, user experience wasn’t high on Apple’s agenda when they switched from Google Maps to Apple Maps, so the search product’s user experience might not be as high a priority as people might think. And of course, Google’s Android is in direct competition with iOS products.

Yahoo already has an existing working relationship with Apple. They partner with Apple for their default weather and stocks app in iOS, so they have a history of working together, which could work to Mayer’s advantage. And she is far along in the process of preparing a pitch to Apple.

However, money talks, and Mayer could decide this is important enough for her to fight for in order to bring search back to Yahoo.

Google pays Apple about $1 billion a year, however the revenue they make is much higher. So on the table is a significant amount of revenue and the search market share that Mayer has been eyeing since she took over as CEO – and that search share took another hit last month, when it lost another 2 percent to Microsoft, according to comScore.

Will we see Apple switch its default search engine from Google to Yahoo? If Mayer can deliver a good enough product, she just might be able to pull it off. However, you have to expect to that Google will try everything in their power to ensure that they remain the default search engine, and not lose the spot to Yahoo.

When you search Google for a well-known person combined with the word LinkedIn, that person’s LinkedIn result will also feature rich snippet data containing their job title, where they work, and their location.

Here are some images showing the LinkedIn rich snippets on Google for Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts:

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer:

And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella:

The rich snippets are definitely from LinkedIn, they aren’t pulling the data from another source such as Google+. While people often have the same job titles on all profile pages on various sites, these rich snippets are definitely unique to LinkedIn. These don’t have the usual authorship formats, where it links to all articles written, as well as the number of Google+ circles the person is in.

This does seem to be either a limited test that Google is running at this time or is just starting to roll out, as not everyone sees the change with the new LinkedIn rich snippets when doing the same search. Samuel Edwards from TenthWave was the first to notice the change with rich snippets in Google, but he noted that only one of his coworkers was able to see the new LinkedIn rich snippets.

Bing is also showing the same LinkedIn rich snippets, although in a slightly different format.

Instead of the position, business name, and location, Bing shows job title, business name, the industry the person works in, and the number of connections the user has. Although the industry looks a little bit clunky when viewing the search results, the number of connections is pretty useful in the snippet. Depending on the length of the rich snippet, some results also show the person’s location.

Here’s how the LinkedIn rich snippets look on Bing for Cutts, Mayer, and Nadella:

On Bing, the number of connections shown is accurate as of the last time Bingbot crawled the page, so it isn’t real time, as evidenced by Cutts’ Bing search result that shows him with 360 connections, while the why version actually shows more than 500.

It appears that Bing is showing the LinkedIn rich snippets for all users and isn’t a limited rollout as Google appears to be doing.

“We’ve partnered with LinkedIn to bring content into Bing for several years,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Search Engine Watch. “LinkedIn, Twitter, and other partners show up in the results and also for entities, which we’re constantly adding, in Snapshot.”

Yahoo, despite getting their search results from Bing, doesn’t show rich snippets from LinkedIn within their own search results.

We’ve also reached out to Google and LinkedIn and will add any updates.

Contextual search works by algorithmically trying to determine what you really mean to search for, such as picking up cues from the immediate preceding searches, and presenting results based on that. It is a similar idea to Google’s Hummingbird algorithm, which launched last year

Search engines need to be able to get much more precise results and advertisements for mobile searchers and contextually determine what the user is actually searching for.

Many view contextual search as the next generation of search, since it works based on anticipating what you really want, which generally provides a better user experience. With mobile, people aren’t as willing to spend a lot of time refining their search queries or go through multiple pages of search results as people do on desktops.

Mobile is where the traffic is going from desktop, and it makes sense for both the marketing value and a revenue value that Yahoo wants to be in there and potentially take some of that market share from Google.

The same way that contextual search determines what you really mean to be searching for, a search engine can apply the same technology to the ads they serve and present ads that are more directly tailored to the searcher, rather than just strictly off keywords, which should result in higher ad click-throughs. This results in more revenue for the search engine and more traffic for those advertisers.

Many people thought it was a mistake when Yahoo got out of the search game under former CEO Carol Bartz. After Mayer was named CEO of Yahoo, many people speculated that Yahoo could move back into having their own search engine rather than using their current Microsoft search deal. After all, Mayer’s background from her early days at Google was in the core search product.

Her past experience will definitely influence her decisions in this area, and she has a lot of knowledge on the inner workings of search, something previous Yahoo CEOs didn’t have. She’s worked on Google’s core search product, so she is familiar with the product and the search industry. It really wasn’t surprising that she would try to make inroads into search, and many of us were expecting it.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as taking their old search algorithm, start crawling the web again, and expect they can compete against Google. The industry has changed and even the way webmasters are presenting their websites has changed.

Then there is the entire issue of spam. There’s always the possibility Yahoo could acquire more companies to help solve this issue. But even if they create a great contextual search product, they still have to get people to use it, and right now Google dominates search on every level in the US and many countries worldwide.

How can Yahoo convert people to use their search over Google or Bing? If I was Yahoo, I would start by talking to Apple about becoming the default contextual search for iPhones and other Apple products.

Google is definitely the leader in search, and has the head start on contextual search. However Mayer is now exploring the options from a technical standpoint within Yahoo see how feasible it is.

Will Yahoo be able to topple Google when it comes to contextual search? A lot of it will come down to just how many people they can get to utilize their own search products.

Right now, Yahoo has a long-term search and advertising contract with Microsoft’s Bing, which provides Yahoo’s organic search results and related search advertising. The contract was renewed last year, but Mayer was reportedly not happy about it.

The current one-year contract will expire at the end of March. But whether Yahoo could possibly have anything in place to replace the results they get from Bing search would likely be a long shot.

Yahoo has apparently brought many of their top Yahoo executives onboard with the project with plans to see something within a three to four-month time period, which would put it after the current Microsoft contract expires. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft would even be willing to renew a contract on a month-to-month basis or on anything shorter than a year, if Yahoo is successful in creating their own search engine.

On top of that, there is also the fact that Microsoft also powers the international versions of Yahoo, leading to an additional complication with search algorithms in other languages. If Yahoo decides to create their own search engine, it’s very likely they would first start with English before expanding it to any other languages, making a Microsoft deal for those search results crucial. Google is the alternative, but it’s unclear if a Yahoo-Google relationship would be a possibility.

Mayer is clearly bringing Yahoo back to its familiar roots in search, something the company used to be well known for. But Yahoo’s own history as a search engine has been varied. Once powered by Inktomi, Google then powered Yahoo search results in the early 2000s until 2004 when it began implementing its own search technology for search results. However when Carol Bartz became CEO, she jettisoned Yahoo’s own search technology in 2009 in favor of the contract with Microsoft.

Another issue with Yahoo potentially starting its own search engine again is that Yahoo currently receives 31 percent of its revenue from its search deal with Microsoft. Any change to that deal would definitely make shareholders uneasy unless Yahoo can make that much money independently from Microsoft.

It’s also complicated by the fact that Yahoo no longer runs its own self-serve pay-per-click system to power search advertising, similar to Google AdWords and Bing Ads, although they did previously have that technology. Those search result ads are also displayed through Bing Ads and is part of the search deal.

When the search deal expires at the end of March, we’ll likely get a better idea of where Yahoo is going with their own search engine, based on if it is renewed and on what terms. Considering Mayer’s Google roots, it isn’t surprising that Mayer wants to explore Yahoo becoming its own search engine once again, and being able to have more active control over it.

From Yahoo’s announcement:

Whether you’re searching for the nearest open restaurant or your local coffee shop, you’ll see a snapshot of the business alongside our refreshed Yahoo Maps experience – information like a company overview, photos, hours of operation, parking availability and more. With a noticeably larger map that stays put on the sidebar, it’s easier to find the location closest to you.

Here’s an example of what that detailed listing looks like for a particular restaurant in San Francisco:

And, in case you’re wondering, here’s that same search listing on Google’s local results:

Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer is a former Googler, and seems to knows a good thing when she sees it. It’s not the first time Yahoo has borrowed concepts from Google either, with other recent inspiration seemingly derived from Gmail and applied to redesigning Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo mentioned in its announcement of the new local search results that detailed business information is available in the U.S. only for now.

September marked the third month in a row that Yahoo claimed the first position, this time at 197,774 unique visitors to Yahoo sites from desktop devices. This is up from August at 196,432.

While traffic was up for Yahoo, revenue was fairly flat in Q3, but right on the mark of what was expected, Business Insider reported:

Like an Olympic gymnast, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer nailed the landing perfectly, it seems. She delivered exactly what analysts expected: EPS: of 34 cents, a beat by 1 cent, and revenues (ex-TAC) of $1.08 billion, a decline of 1%, right on expectations.

“I’m very pleased with our execution, especially as we’ve continued to invest in and strengthen our core business,” Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said of Q3 results. “In Q3, we launched new user experiences across many of our digital daily habits — Yahoo Screen, My Yahoo, Fantasy Sports, and more. Now with more than 800 million monthly users on Yahoo — up 20 percent over the past 15 months — we’re achieving meaningful increases in user engagement and traffic.”

Yahoo acquired Tumblr in June of this year, but BusinessInsider reported Mayer said, “We don’t believe Tumblr will provide meaningful revenue this year.”

Even though Yahoo sites won in unique visitors for September, Google remained the top dog in search market share at 66.9 percent, with Yahoo at 11.4 percent.

Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt 2013, the world’s largest hackathon, was quite electrifying. After being here for three days, you could definitely feel the energy spike (and security too) as two influential speakers were set to appear. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were the two special guests of the event.

Here are six things we learned from Mayer and Zuckerberg at TechCrunch Disrupt.

1. Yahoo Kept the Logo Redesign In-House

Michael Arrington, founder and former editor of TechCrunch, first question to Mayer was “What the f*** happened here?” referring to all the press feedback that was generated by the new logo, which was recently revealed. Mayer said she really liked the way the logo turned out.

Mayer said Yahoo prides itself as being the world’s largest startup. The attitude of the company is to be entrepreneurial, which is why they kept the redesign in-house and didn’t spend millions on the new design.

The reason for the change was due to the external and employee feedback the company was receiving. Mayer stated that the company would receive many emails and letters about the logo, requesting for a change.

She also mentioned that brands usually do small iterations of their logo over time and most are so minor that no one really notices. The company really wanted something that matched what they stand for, which is their great products and user experience.

When Zuckerberg was asked about the logo change, he quickly stated that while Yahoo’s logo had not changed much in 18 years, Facebook too has had the same logo for almost 10.

2. Zuckerberg and Mayer Want More Users

While Mayer made the announcement that Yahoo has officially passed 800 million users globally and also monthly active users are up 20 percent, it will take them three or more years to get where they want the company to be.

Zuckerberg stated that just because they have hit 1 billion users, they are far from done with the job they set out to do. His future hope is to get the 5 billion people without the Internet connected, which is the goal of his new project, Internet.org.

3. Yahoo is All About the Right People and the Right Product

Mayer was then asked of her time at Yahoo and the growth that has taken place, as the stock price has doubled in the 14 months since Mayer has been at the company. Arrington then asked, “How did you earn that?”

Mayer immediately stated “The smart investments I owe to my predecessors.” She also mentioned that the company has great people and the four things that create success. Those four things are:

• The right people
• The right product
• Traffic
• Revenue

4. Mobile is Where It’s Going…STILL!

In general, mobile was a huge theme throughout the conference and Mayer and Zuckerberg only solidified this more with their sessions. Zuckerberg, along with the six telecommunications and mobile companies are tasking themselves with building new technologies that will make it possible to get everyone in the world a smartphone, but make the data within those smartphones affordable, which would give other opportunities to create new business.

Mayer mentioned that mobile was one of Yahoo’s areas of growth, noting that 350 million monthly active users are on mobile, which increased since she became CEO in 2012.

5. PRISM Was a Sore Subject

Both Mayer and Zuckerberg were asked about the U.S. government in regards to the PRISM scandal. PRISM is a mass electronic data-mining program run by NSA (National Security Agency) since 2007.

When Mayer was asked “What are you doing to protect us from tyrannical governments?” she answered by saying that she was proud to be part of an organization that from the very beginning has been skeptical of and has been scrutinizing requests. She also mentioned that Yahoo has been pushing for more transparency.

Zuckerberg’s response to the same question was not as “friendly” as Mayer’s. He quickly stated that the government “blew it.” He mentioned that it’s the government’s job to protect our freedoms as well as the economy and companies, but they did a bad job at balancing those areas.

6. Mayer, Page and Zuckerberg all Have Superpowers

During Mayer’s interview, Arrington asked what her superpower was, in addition to other two other tech giants, Google CEO Larry Page and Zuckerberg.

At first, Mayer mentioned that she didn’t think she had one, but thought that while she didn’t know Zuckerberg very well, she thought his insight into people was his superpower and that Page’s was questioning the status quo.

Mayer later noted that if she was to have a superpower, she thought hers was the ability to empathize. She mentioned that when she came on board to Yahoo there was a lot of instability and Mayer had to immerse herself within the company in order to understand Yahoo’s employees and recognize where they were coming from.

Image Credits: Simon Heseltine