Yahoo Site Explorer No Longer

According to the Yahoo! Search Blog, the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool will be shutting down later this year. This news comes shortly after they announced Bing Webmaster Center will be the center for search tools for both Yahoo and Bing as party of the Yahoo & Microsoft Search Alliance. The tool will be shut down “once all markets are transitioned”.


Well, I for one am disappointed. Almost no other SEO had anything good to say about this tool, giving it a dismal grade when comparing it with other free tools, but I don’t see it like that. To me, this tool was something I have always used and still do when getting a quick rough backlink report at the click of a button. I use an SEO toolbar that lets me get various analytics on each page, and one of them was Yahoo Page Links. Trust me, I know it’s not a very accurate tool, and there are better out there, but the fact that it’s free is pretty attractive. Seomoz’s Open Site Explorer does a much better job analyzing backlinks, but the fact of the matter is that it’s a pretty limited free tool, and it’s not installed on many toolbars, including mine. You can take shots at Yahoo all day for this being not a precise tool like others, but you don’t see Google offering a backlink checker. Granted, Bing’s will probably be much better, but nonetheless it’s going to be hard not to miss my old friend.

For more information on all the details of this announcement, visit the Yahoo! Search Blog.

I can almost hear all of the SEOs yelling at this post saying that the tool was no good, but no matter what they say I will never change my mind. Please tell me at least a few of you out there feel the same way? I’d love to hear what my readers think of this soon expired tool.