Yahoo Search
Shares rank 26 of 38 search engines by recommenders
Some people find Yahoo Search's interface improved and still use it, though critics call it clearly worse than Google.
Some people find Yahoo Search's interface improved and still use it, though critics call it clearly worse than Google.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Worse results than Google
“Google was immediately better than Yahoo, that's why people switched en masse.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race” “Google search was way better than yahoo or altavista”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: Which companies gained a competitive edge purely via engineering?” “Bing, Yahoo, Yandex are way worse than Google”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026” - Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026”
- Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “OpenAI needs to raise at least $207B by 2030”
Quality fell after crawler shutdown
“performance in terms of latency, quality, and $/search was worse than when Yahoo was doing it”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence” “The problem was that yahoo killed it. They shut down its crawler and it started going stale.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “SpaceX Files to Go Public”
Other search engines people recommend
The four most recommended other search engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| Yahoo SearchThis page | 8 | 11 | 42% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
18 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Yahoo! is the best search engine, and I cant imagine anyone making anything better.”
“Yahoo is another one I've started using instead.”
“After destroying Yahoo’s search product he failed up and did the same at Google.”
“performance in terms of latency, quality, and $/search was worse than when Yahoo was doing it”
“He claimed latency figures of around 1500ms, when their internal goal was to keep latency below 300ms”
“Google search was way better than yahoo or altavista”
“Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, Alta-Vista were still loading”
“They are making the same mistake as Yahoo did.”
“mostly returns a limited range of results from "approved" sources.”
“They all had their pros and cons.”
“The problem was that yahoo killed it. They shut down its crawler and it started going stale.”
“Heck even yahoo search has better ux now.”
“No those are all significantly worse products”
“Bing, Yahoo, Yandex are way worse than Google”
“when it works better than google”
“Google was immediately better than Yahoo, that's why people switched en masse.”
“They sucked compared to Google.”
“Yahoo has shown that even with immense brand recognition people will still switch if the alternative is really better”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.