Yahoo turns off Search Alerts frontend, leaves users without management options
Yahoo! Search Alerts is was a Google Alerts alternative for Yahoo users. The service provided you with tools to monitor search keywords in Yahoo's engine and receive notifications when new websites or pages were added to Yahoo Search.
Unlike Google Alerts, Yahoo! Search Alerts supported only email notifications and not RSS notification options.
Emails were sent out by the company based on the frequency setting on the alerts management panel.
There you had options to set alerts to be sent daily or in near real-time.
If you try to open the Yahoo! Search Alerts website right now you will notice that it won't open anymore at all.
You are redirected to the main Yahoo website instead or a local version of it depending from where in the world you are connecting to the Internet.
While that may not be a big issue for new users who wanted to use the service to monitor Yahoo Search keywords, it is highly problematic for existing Search Alerts users.
The main issue here is that alerts are still being sent out by Yahoo based on the last Search Alerts configuration.
There is however no option anymore to manage these alerts. If you want to disable the monitoring of a search keyword you cannot do so because there is no management page that lets you do that. There is no option anymore to modify keywords, change frequencies or delete keywords outright.
Each alert email that you receive contains a link to modify the alert. But the pages these links lead to are not available anymore as well.
This means that Yahoo Search Alerts users are stuck with alerts that they cannot delete nor modify anymore.
It is probably only a matter of time before Yahoo turns off the backend as well but for now, that has not been the case.
While you could set up email filters to block alerts, it needs to be done individually if you want to receive some alerts but not others.
Users who want to modify alerts cannot do so right now. I contacted Yahoo for a statement but have not heard back from the company yet.
You could try contacting Yahoo directly as well if you want Search Alerts turned off for your account or modified in any way.
Now You: Are you using a Search Alerts service?
Not only did Yahoo disable the front end, there is no unsubscribe link in the emails. Customer Service will not respond to me after our initial contact.
When I messaged them (on Facebook), they asked for information from the most recent alert–date, subject line, code at the bottom of the email, if any. I provided the first two, because the last did not exist. I was then informed that I must have deleted the email because *it could not be found in my inbox*. I was told to wait until I received another and to make contact again. I advised Yahoo that in the meantime I was/would be reporting the emails to SpamCop and to spam@uce.gov, and indeed, I have done that.
As it happens–and this is how I solved the problem after Yahoo chose to ignore me–I have several accounts linked to Yahoo, and it was to one of those accounts that the Alerts were directed. The reason Customer Service could not find the email in question as it rooted through my private email is that it was never there–the alert had gone to Gmail, as they all have from the beginning. I removed that account from Yahoo, and the alerts have nowhere to go except back to Yahoo.
What’s disturbing is…well, two things. First, Yahoo will not respond to me now–total customer service fail. Worse, it appears from our exchange that Yahoo Customer Service minions have the ability to go traipsing through our Yahoo email accounts without so much as a by-your-leave. I was not asked for my permission. They just did it.
A long time ago, Yahoo was THE account to have. Then it changed. With the advent of Marissa Mayer, all was supposed to be well again, but apparently she is powerless to make Yahoo run as it once did. Too bad for Yahoo.
Yahoo! (never forget the screamer) has a long history of taking over innovative, quality companies, and running them into the ground.
Remember Geocities, eGroups, and many other user-groups sold down the river?
I just hope Tumblr and Flikq can find new owners of quality and integrity.
Panem et circenses, people.
Yahoo is on the decline for a ling time. Yahoo is also closing its Transliteration Service on 9 April.
http://transliteration.yahoo.com/
also –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Yahoo!-owned_sites_and_services#Closed.2Fdefunct_services
Never heard of that property before, but then again it can only translate between Hindi, Tamil, and English…
I didn’t even know Yahoo! had ever had a Search Alert. At one time though I was surprised to find out Yahoo! was still alive (for one reason or another my small brains had concluded the company was finished, kaput!). That’s when I decided to open an account to test their Webmail… but my default system+browser security configuration blocked the very creation of the account. The company in terms of intrusion is worst than Google (without moreover the latter’s quality of services) but because Yahoo! is so insignificant in market shares included their hyper-sneaky policy appears less flagrant.
Being neither macho nor misogynist but simply curious as to what is a myth or not, I never found out if what I had read several times was true or not, that is that ladies are more Yahoo! inclined when males favor Google. Anyone know if this is well-founded?
Up until this article I did not know about the RSS option within google alerts. Simply because this option is not available for my main account. I tried with a second account and it works fine there. I just can’t figure out what the problem with my main account is. Sorry for the OT.
The last time I used Yahoo Search was 1997. They can keep it. :)
+1
+10^n