Meet Aabaco Small Business (the Reincarnation of Yahoo Directory)

The Yahoo Small Business Directory is no more. It’s now part of Aabaco Small Business.

Aabaco — whatever that means — is a company owned (for now) by Yahoo and attempts to reach the Yahoo Small Business Directory now direct users to the Aabaco site.

Before Google was a household name, many people found their way around the Web by way of the Yahoo Directory. The Directory was not a search engine, rather an organized list of websites selected by Yahoo.

Websites were sorted by topics such as education, shopping, and resources. You could click the topic you were interested in and see a list of websites under that topic which Yahoo had curated.

But some found the system convoluted and confusing. What’s more, directories began to get a bad rap as spammy link sellers. That wasn’t a good reputation for Yahoo.

The decision to retire the Yahoo Directory was announced with little fanfare by the company. Yahoo simply gave a short paragraph at the end of an already short 2014 progress report explaining its decision by stating, “Yahoo was started nearly 20 years ago as a directory of websites that helped users explore the Internet. 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.”

So it’s not really much of an explanation. But perhaps Yahoo did not feel the need to spell out the reason behind its actions with directories so little in use these days.

Yahoo has been making a number of changes in recent years, a transformation that is coming to pass under the leadership of ex-Googler Marissa Mayer. As for the Yahoo Directory, it is no more. Instead of transitioning the service into a new form, it seems the company has killed it completely in favor of a new service all together.

The question is now, what exactly is Aabaco Small Business?

In short, Aabaco Small Business is a service that offers small business owners custom websites, hosting, domains, eCommerce help, and business email plans. So, instead of helping you find businesses on the Web, Aabaco helps you get your small business on it.

For now, Aabaco Small Business is a Yahoo business, but this will not always be the case. Though no specific date was given, Aabaco explained on its website that they will be spun off from Yahoo to become a part of Aabaco Holdings. You can go to the company’s Questions and Answers page to learn more.

Image: Aabaco Small Business

This article, "Meet Aabaco Small Business (the Reincarnation of Yahoo Directory)" was first published on Small Business Trends