The Yahoo Influence: Tumblr Stops Indexing Porn Blogs (But Won’t Police Them)

Tumblr has quietly stopped indexing adult-oriented blogs in search engines and in Tumblr’s internal searches, a move that has raised new questions about whether the popular blogging service will crack down on porn in the wake of its acquisition by Yahoo. An FAQ doc for adult-oriented blogs, apparently published in the past couple of months, distinguishes between blogs that have occasional adult content and those that publish it regularly. The former continue to be indexed in search engines; the latter are not. Valleywag, which reported on the changes today, accused Tumblr of beginning to push porn into “an internet sex ghetto.” But it’s unclear how broadly the updated policy is being applied. Searches for porn Tumblrs on Google and on Tumblr itself continue to yield results by the thousands. And the same social features that help other Tumblrs go viral – following, liking, and reblogging – will continue to surface new porn content on Tumblr even if porn blogs disappear from search engines.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Yahoo Climbs Back Above Google in U.S. Web Traffic

Though recent attention paid to Yahoo often focuses on its refreshes of tired products or its famous CEO, Marissa Mayer, the easily forgotten story is that the site is still really freaking popular.

Shutterstock/Greg Melville

Yahoo properties got more unique U.S. visitors than any other company’s in July, according to comScore. They had 196.6 million, compared to 192.3 million for previous leader Google.

What’s more, Yahoo’s numbers didn’t include the new Yahoo-owned Tumblr, which came in 28th place.

Yahoo’s ascendance was first pointed out today at Marketing Land, by Greg Sterling, who theorized that it was the first time since 2008 that Yahoo had been in the top spot.

However, comScore VP Andrew Lipsman said that Yahoo had taken first place as recently as May 2011. He noted that Yahoo and Google have been “very close for the past several months.” In June, Google was ahead by less than four million.

But don’t get too excited, Yahoo fans. These Web traffic stats don’t include the all-important category of mobile.

Lipsman said it’s quite possible that Google will regain the top spot in upcoming comScore multi-platform rankings, given how strong the company is on phones.

Yahoo spokeswoman Anne Espiritu said the company doesn’t comment on third-party metrics; Google has not gotten back with a comment.