Comparison/Contrast - Essay Example

Yahoo and Google: A Comparative Analysis The fast technological developments have paved the way for the proliferation of the World Wide Web and the Internet as global networking sites for various purposes. As the Internet has increased its use as a medium of information, expression, social affiliation, to conduct business transactions and for entertainment, various websites have emerged that revolutionized technological applications. Among the most successful of the websites are Yahoo and Google.

The essay aims to present a comparative analysis of Yahoo and Google, which would initially be presented in tabular form for ease of presentation, to wit: COMPARATIVE DETAILS YAHOO GOOGLE Date founded 1994 1998 Founders David Filo & Jerry Yang Larry Page & Sergey Brin Company Address 701 First Avenue 1600 Amphitheatre Sunnyvale CA 94089 Mountainview CA 94043 Appearance clearly structured simple and direct Content yahoo sites seen search prompt focal point More advertisements Ease of Use slower than other faster to access other sites A brief historical background would attest that Yahoo was incorporated earlier than Google by four years.

These websites have been incorporated by two founders each, all from Stanford University. Their corporate addresses are both located in California. Their success has accelerated globally with Yahoo’s net income for the first quarter of 2011 amounting to $223 million (Yahoo, Inc. Financial Highlights, 2011) and Google’s net income of $1.8 billion for the same period (Google, 2011). The changing and creatively innovative appearance of Google intermittently and its simplicity and directness in focal point for accessing searches makes more effective for users worldwide.

Yahoo’s site when accessed presents additional details in terms of other yahoo sites and diversity in advertisements. According to Experian Hitwise (2011), from among the top visited websites in the US, Google seconded the top, Facebook, with 8.99% visits per share. Yahoo, on the other hand, ranked number 4 with 2.77% visits per share as of June 2011. The greater ease of use and the users’ vast options to search varied contents without being distracted by advertisements make Google’s effectiveness and performance greater, as compared to Yahoo.

Reference List Experian Hitwise. Top 10 Websites. http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard- 10133.html Google. 2011. Google Announces First Quarter 2011 Results. http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q1_google_earnings.html -----------. 2011. Overview. http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/ Yahoo, Inc. 2011. Overview. http://pressroom.yahoo.net/pr/ycorp/overview.aspx -----------. 2011. Q1’11 Financial Highlights. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/YHOO/1282460155x0x460400/824e32b9-6f56-4089-b70d-15f56a4a7bb5/YHOO_Q111EarningsPresentationFinal.pdf