Skip to main content

Yahoo is shutting down its original Directory portal

yahoo shutting original directory portal old
Image used with permission by copyright holder
In the mid-1990s, you didn’t type your online search queries into Google — you looked up sites in Yahoo’s Directory, a hand-picked, curated list of everything on the Internet. Such a concept seems ridiculous now, but it’s how Yahoo got started as a business. Now the company has announced its iconic Directory is going to be shuttered as it focuses on other areas.

“Yahoo was started nearly 20 years ago as a directory of websites that helped users explore the Internet,” explains a blog posting put up by Yahoo yesterday. “While we are still committed to connecting users with the information they’re passionate about, our business has evolved and at the end of 2014 (December 31), we will retire the Yahoo Directory. Advertisers will be upgraded to a new service; more details to be communicated directly.”

Yahoo was started by Stanford University graduates Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994. The pair’s fledgling directory service was called Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, and thus Yahoo was born —being able to flick through a carefully compiled list of entertainment and news sites was seen as a much better option than the search engines of the day.

Of course the Internet soon exploded in size, and a Web directory service was no longer practical even before Google appeared on the scene in 1998. Old-time Internet users will still have fond memories of the original Yahoo, however, and today’s announcement marks another milestone in the evolution of the modern Web.

“At Yahoo, focus is an important part of accomplishing our mission: To make the world’s daily habits more entertaining and inspiring,” said Yahoo’s Jay Rossiter, SVP Cloud Platform Group. “To achieve this focus, we have sunset more than 60 products and services over the past two years, and redirected those resources toward products that our users care most about and are aligned with our vision. With even more smart, innovative Yahoos focused on our core products — search, communications, digital magazines, and video — we can deliver the best for our users.”

[Header image from 1996 courtesy of The Internet Archive]

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
The HP Victus gaming PC with RTX 3060 has a $550 discount
The HP Victus 15L gaming PC in white.

Gamers don't need to spend more than $1,000 if they want to buy a new gaming PC because there are affordable options like the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,400, you can get it for just $850 as HP has applied a $550 discount on this machine. However, you shouldn't delay your purchase because there's no assurance that the gaming PC will still be 39% off tomorrow. If you want to make sure that you get it for less than $1,000, you're going to have to complete the transaction for it within the day.

Why you should buy the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop
You shouldn't expect the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop to match the performance of the top-of-the-line models of the best gaming PCs, but it's surprisingly powerful for its cost. Inside it are the 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, with 16GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the best place to start for gaming. It's enough to play today's best PC games without any issues, and it may even be capable of running the upcoming PC games of the next few years if you're willing to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Read more
This 17-inch HP laptop is on sale for just $300 — but hurry!
The HP 17t-cn300 17.3-inch laptop against a white background.

If you want to buy a laptop with a relatively large screen, the good news is that you don't have to break the bank with your purchase because you can get the HP Laptop 17t for a very affordable $300. It's on sale from HP with a $200 discount on its original price of $500, but there's no telling how much time is remaining before this offer expires. We don't think it will stay available for long because laptop deals like this almost always get sold out quickly, so complete the transaction as soon as possible to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the HP Laptop 17t
With the 17.3-inch display of the HP Laptop 17t, you'll have a lot of screen real estate to work on your projects and watch streaming shows. It's pretty affordable for a laptop with this large screen, which offers HD+ resolution for sharp details and vibrant colors. However, despite its big display, the HP Laptop 17t maintains portability because it's only 0.78 of an inch thick, which makes it easy to slide into your bag when you're on the go, and it won't be too heavy to carry around because it only weighs about 4.6 pounds.

Read more
What to do if your Intel CPU keeps crashing
Pins on Core i9-12900K.

Despite being among the best processors you can buy, some high-end Intel CPUs have faced a wave of instability over the past few months. Intel is investigating the problem, but the company and its motherboard partners have already worked toward some temporary fixes to improve stability on high-end Intel CPUs -- even if it comes at a performance cost.

Before getting into the fixes, keep in mind that they are temporary. Intel will release a statement on the instability soon, likely with more direct guidance on what affected users should do. In addition, the scope of the problem isn't clear -- if you're not experiencing issues, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Who's affected

Read more