(17 August 2007 6:39 pm)

MUMBAI: Yahoo! has toppled web search giant Google in terms of customer satisfaction, according to a survey conducted by University of Michigan's American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The results of the survey state that Yahoo! has risen by 3.9 per cent over last year to reach a customer satisfaction score of 79 out of 100 points. Meanwhile Google has fallen by about 3.7 per cent achieving a total score of 78 points, one point behind Yahoo!

"The positive perception of Yahoo! is mainly because of the relaunch of the main site and various offshoots that are now gaining ground. People have become comfortable with Yahoo's interface and continues to be dominant in terms of its core strengths - communities and sub-functions," said Foresee Results chief executive Larry Freed, sponspor of the ACSI report.

"Google must figure out how to leverage all those great applicatins they have developed. For the average consumer, Google today is the same as what they had seen three years ago," he said.

In response to the survey, spokesperson from Google said that they are always working to provide users the best online experience, and that they welcome strong competition for it helps drive market innovation. The ACSI data is collected on the basis of interviews of nearly 70,000 customers to measure satisfaction with over 200 companies panning across 45 industries.

However, experts believe that while surveying the internet vertical, ACSI combined two different categories namely search engines and portals. Yahoo's ranking is on the basis of its portal strength and this is the first time Yahoo! has edged out Google.