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Yahoo’s Time on Homepage Up 20% Since Redesign

posted on October 28, 2009


yahoo-logoBack in July, Yahoo premiered the latest version of their homepage. The two biggest differences were the ability to personalize apps to add content to the homepage, and ditching dozens of links to less popular Yahoo services. And after three months, Yahoo’s ready to report their progress: time spent on their homepage is up 20%.

Speaking at Yahoo’s annual Analyst Day today, senior vice president Tapan Bhat also reported that pageviews were up 9%. By Yahoo’s measures, the redesign is a success—they were going for greater user engagement (what Bhat dubbed “PageYield”).

The big changes—specifically personalization, but streamlining the links probably helped—contributed directly to the increased engagement. The personalized widgets in the page were well received by Yahoo-ers. Says TechCrunch:

According to Yahoo consumer surveys, 75 percent of users love the applications area and 40 percent are using between 6 to 11 apps. Usage of that feature is up 8 percent over the past three months.

And that’s not the only good news: the “Today” module, showing targeted top headlines, sees click-through rates of 76%, while the ad on the homepage has seen a 10% CTR increase. However, the reduced number of ads on the page is still going to hurt Yahoo’s bottom line.

What do you think? Are these measures accurate ways to count user engagement? Is the redesign a success?


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  • http://www.calfinder.com dean

    I can’t stand it!

  • http://www.best-seo-blog.com/ Michael Martinez

    Someone should do a study to see if that extra time spent on the home page is because there are fewer Yahoo! services to choose from.
    .-= Michael Martinez´s last blog ..Will Search Engines Ignore My Site? =-.

  • Ryan

    Um, the reason more time is spent on the site is because no one can figure anything out. This proves nothing about the new homepage. If anything it proves how bad it is, because the homepage is supposed to be designed as a “hub” page for the rest of the Internet. You’re not supposed to spend inordinate amounts of time on it. Most I do on the homepage is check my mail and maybe click on a news article if it’s interesting. Other than that, I spend very little time on the homepage. With the new one, it takes forever to load, I can’t find anything because it’s so disorganized, and it takes longer to log in to my mail. That’s why it’s gone up 20% Not because people like to sit and stare at a homepage, but because no one can figure out how to work it.

  • Ryan

    By the way, I would be very skeptical of Yahoo’s “poll.” If you look on their blog when they announced the homepage, almost EVERY SINGLE COMMENT is negative. Out of 1,187 comments, I think I found maybe 10 that were positive. Don’t tell me that 75% of users like it. I will not accept Yahoo’s obviously biased poll. Even if it is correct, 75% is a pretty low satisfaction rate. I’m willing to put money that at least 90% of users were happy with the old homepage before the new one rolled around.

  • Heidi

    I personally am spending less time on yahoo and am looking for a new homepage. I really don’t like the new version. Takes too long to get to where I want to go. yuck

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