People are only just learning what Yahoo stands for after 29 years

05 September 2023 , 10:21

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Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo (Image: Getty)

It has been navigating users across the internet for almost three decades - but people are only just learning what Yahoo! actually stands for. Founded in January 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, the website was originally named Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web before being renamed Yahoo! just three months later.

But 29 years on and internet users are only just realising what Yahoo! actually stands for, with some completely in the dark about it being a backronym. One Reddit user joked: "I thought it was You Always Have Other Options." Another user added: "It's a backronym and I don't care how many Yahoo flacks say otherwise."

The electrical engineering graduate students created the domain name yahoo.com in January 1995 because they like the word's general definition, as in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth." It is actually a backronym, an acronym formed from an already existing word for Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle. In the late 1990s, Yahoo grew in popularity alongside MSN, Lycos and Excite, with its stock price doubling in December 1999.

Just six months later, Yahoo and Google signed an agreement to allow Google to power searches made on yahoo.com. However, many attribute Yahoo's downfall in recent years to unfair acquisitions, rejecting a proposal made by Microsoft, and failing to buy Facebook. Commenting on its downfall, one user said: "Keep in mind, Google, Facebook, et al, may not have become what they are today if Yahoo had bought them. They've made such poor decisions it's likely they'd have run them into the ground still..."

Another user added: "I am old and remember the days when Yahoo was booming. Where it all changed was when Google became their search and they allowed it to be branded Google. It did not take long before basically Google had 'stole' all of Yahoo's customers. I was thinking at the time how crazy it was for Yahoo to allow Google to be branded instead of using in the background without any Google branding."

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A third user said: "I remember in early 2000s everyone's browser homepage was Yahoo (at least in Hong Kong, yahoo.com.hk to be exact). It had got everything, daily news highlights, email, dictionary, search engine. It still feels incredible that we've got rid of Yahoo in favour of a blank search engine page nowadays."

Paige Freshwater