Yahoo Tries Out Redesigned Home, Shopping Pages
Yahoo Inc. on Monday unveiled its first major overhaul in five years as the largest Internet portal struggles against a sluggish online advertising market.
Executives said changes to the site’s home, mail and shopping pages were made to better serve visitors. But analysts pointed out that many of the modifications also better serve advertisers.
The redesigned home page, for instance, highlights Yahoo promotions and affiliated sites. The new shopping page places well-known merchants higher on the page.
“Yahoo’s advertising revenue has been in free fall for the last four to five quarters,” said Derek Brown, an analyst with WR Hambrecht & Co. “Clearly the company is taking steps to address that free fall.”
The company, launched by two Stanford University students during the dot-com boom, has tried to make money by charging users for some services, such as online personals.
Most of its revenue comes from advertisements and sponsorships, according to the company’s latest annual report.
Last year, Yahoo lost $92.7 million on revenue of $717.4 million, down from a profit of $70.7 million on revenue of $1.1 billion in 2000.
Yahoo expects to test the redesign for a few weeks and implement a final design by July.
The site’s test home page boasts a “personal assistant,” where users can log on to their individual e-mail, calendar and address book. The new mail page includes drop-down menus and integrates additional applications such as a personal notepad. The redesigned shopping page lays out products by category and merchant.
Yahoo has been working on the design for the new front page for about six months.
“The overall goal here ... is to continually evolve to meet consumer needs,” said Tim Brady, Yahoo’s chief product officer. “It was definitely time to update the framework.”
The portal, which has 237 million registered users, saw more than 80 million unique visitors during April, 3 million more than Microsoft Corp.’s MSN, according to the latest numbers from Media Metrix.
Users can preview the beta site at www.yahoo.com/beta.html.
Yahoo shares fell 2 cents to close at $15.84 on Nasdaq.
