Yahoo, written Yahoo!, is an American web portal based in Sunnyvale, California. It provides the Yahoo Search engine, which shows search results, and services such as Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News. Jerry Yang and David Filo established it in January 1994.
History of Yahoo
Creator: Jerry Yang and David Filo, Stanford University students. Year: 1994.
Jerry Yang and David Filo set up Yahoo in January 1994. Yahoo was incorporated on March 2, 1995.1 That year it added Yahoo Search.
Yahoo became a public company in April 1996 through an initial public offering.2 Its stock listing gave it funds to expand its web portal.
In June 2000, Yahoo began using Google for its search results.3 Yahoo later built its own search software.
On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a ten-year deal. Bing became the exclusive search platform for Yahoo sites. The deal ran for ten years from 2009. Yahoo also became the sales force for premium search advertisers at both companies. The Yahoo user interface stayed. Yahoo kept 88% of the revenue from search ads on its site during the first five years of the deal.
On July 25, 2016, Verizon said it would buy Yahoo's core Internet business for $4.83 billion.4 In September 2021, investment funds run by Apollo Global Management bought 90% of the company from Verizon.5
Changelog and latest update
The July 2009 deal made Bing the search platform for Yahoo sites. Yahoo kept the user interface. Yahoo also became the sales force for premium search advertisers. StatCounter lists Yahoo! at 1.36% of worldwide search in September 2026.
Yahoo's press newsroom lists dated releases. On September 2, 2026, Yahoo Sports and Apple TV announced live MLB and MLS alternate broadcasts. On September 8, 2026, Yahoo Finance announced a live daily show on AI and technology. On September 21, 2026, Yahoo Finance announced a new programming lineup. On August 31, 2026, Yahoo Sports announced a cross-app experience for collectibles and commerce. On September 15, 2026, Yahoo Finance launched a hub for real estate news and trends.
Latest update: Yahoo Inc. press release, September 21, 2026, 2026-09-21
The Yahoo newsroom lists a September 21, 2026 release. It announces a new programming lineup for Yahoo Finance. The lineup has live daily shows and original series. The newsroom shows the release date beside each entry. The newsroom files the release under the Finance category.
Usage examples
Yahoo appears in site work through its mail servers, its finance pages and its mail settings. The three examples below change no account or site. They show a mail exchanger lookup, a Yahoo Finance quote address and the outgoing mail settings for a Yahoo Mail account.
dig +short MX yahoo.comThis command asks DNS for the mail exchanger records of yahoo.com. The answer lists the servers that accept mail for the domain, each with a priority number. A site owner runs this check to see where mail for a Yahoo domain is delivered, or to confirm a mail setup for a domain that uses Yahoo mail servers.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPLThis address opens the Yahoo Finance quote page for the stock symbol AAPL. The symbol is the last part of the address, so the same pattern works for other symbols. A site that links to a quote page uses this address form, and the page returns HTTP 200 when it checks.
Server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465 (SSL) or 587 (TLS)These are the outgoing mail server settings that Yahoo publishes for its mail accounts. A mail program or a script that sends mail through a Yahoo account uses the server name and one of the two ports. Yahoo's help page lists these values, so they are the values to compare when outgoing mail fails.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
Yahoo
Wikipedia
The encyclopedia article on the Yahoo web portal. It covers the founding in 1994, the 1996 initial public offering, the Google search deal, the Bing deal of 2009 and the Verizon and Apollo ownership changes. Each claim links to a cited source.
About Yahoo
Yahoo Inc.
The official About page of Yahoo Inc. It contains a timeline that starts in 1994, when Stanford University engineering students Jerry Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo. It also lists the company's later milestones, such as the 1995 registration of the yahoo.com domain.
Yahoo Inc. press releases
Yahoo Inc.
The official press page of Yahoo Inc., which lists each release with its date. Entries from August and September 2026 cover Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Finance. The page is the primary source for the latest update in this entry.
Yahoo Mail: outgoing server settings
Yahoo Help
Yahoo's help page for the mail server settings of Yahoo Mail accounts. It gives smtp.mail.yahoo.com as the server name and lists ports 465 and 587 for outgoing mail. Use this page to confirm the settings before a client or script is configured.
Bing (search engine)
Wikipedia
The encyclopedia article on Bing. It describes the July 29, 2009 deal with Yahoo, in which Bing replaced the Yahoo search engine, and the 88% revenue share. It also gives the April 2024 market share figures for Yahoo and Bing.
Microsoft and Yahoo search agreement, Form 8-K exhibit 99.1
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Yahoo filing)
Yahoo exhibit to its 2009 Form 8-K that sets out the search agreement with Microsoft. It states that Bing becomes the exclusive algorithmic and paid search platform for Yahoo sites for ten years. It gives the revenue share, with Yahoo keeping 88 percent in the first five years.
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