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CXO

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

By Bill Detwiler May 16, 2006, 5:46 AM PDT Bill Detwiler on Twitter billdetwiler

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Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

Yahoo

Yahoo has made several incremental changes to its home page over the years, but it has held on to the same basic framework since 1994. Here is a snapshot of Yahoo’s original home page, sans logo with exclamation point, with 19 blue-linked categories.

Yahoo
Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

In 1995, Yahoo experimented with a funky and colorful logo, a larger array of categories and subcategories, and buttons such as “Add URL” and “Write Us” by its header. Web search became a prominent site feature, as it remains today.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

In 1996, Yahoo dropped the funky logo in favor of a cleaner, monochromatic design. But it kept its now-famous exclamation point. Instead of having categories listed side by side, the company aligned them all along the left for easier scrolling. By then, Yahoo had launched properties such as Yahoo Japan and the children’s site Yahooligans.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

This 1998 clip reveals Yahoo’s experimentation with front-and-center banner ads. It later would move a larger, more dynamic ad out of the header area. By this point, Yahoo had local-language sites all over Europe and Asia. It also maintained sites focused on U.S. cities ranging from Boston to Minneapolis, Minn.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

In 2000, Yahoo, which had long since gone back to multiple columns of categories and subcategories, prominently displayed its instant-messaging client and its various Yahoo Shopping stores. It also featured top news stories, community pages Yahoo Clubs and eBay competitor Yahoo Auctions.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

In 2002, Yahoo Personals took center stage. So did the company’s e-mail service. Localization was still a primary home page focus, as was news aggregation.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

In 2003, job ads from HotJobs, plus sports content, got special attention. The page became significantly longer, though links seemed a bit less clustered. Entertainment got its own purple tab below Marketplace.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

HotJobs, by 2004 a Yahoo unit, got primary real estate on the company’s home page that year. The company also featured its broadband partnership with SBC Communications, now owned by AT&T. In addition, it stopped featuring the local Yahoo units and instead gave tabs to products like “Buzz Log – What the world is searching for” and ZIP code-centered weather reports. rn

rnPersonalized “My Yahoo” pages got prominent play, as did Yahoo’s “Desktop Search” beta.

Images: Yahoo’s steady home page transformation

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By Bill Detwiler
Bill Detwiler is the Editor for Technical Content and Ecosystem at Celonis. He is the former Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and previous host of TechRepublic's Dynamic Developer podcast and Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show.
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