Why doesn't yahoo member search work any longer?

Question

why doesn't yahoo member search work any longer? It hasn't worked for ages!

Answer 1

I used to use that a lot, too but haven't tried it lately.  I would guess people wanted to stay anonymous.  I actually found a couple old friends and chatted up some gals, too.

It also may be the identity theft problem and Yahoo doesn't want to be a contributer to that.  Also the spamming problem. People would go in there, and create a database of people and their interests and sell the lists.

Also, they have Yahoo personals which you have to pay for and wholesale searching bypass the paying part.

It was a good idea when Yahoo started but as they say, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Answer 2

Ok, well ive seen this happen many many times.  The answer is pretty simple, although I dont know the actual particulars of the Yahoo servers, but...My educated guess is.

I see this happen every time a new version of messenger comes out.  You cannot search profiles for about 4 to 6 weeks after it comes out.  I guess this is due to the fact they have to do some indexing or something on the database.  I guess they have to get all the p**n bots updated to make sure they work with the new version.  I dont know if thats true but i bet it has something to do with it since that is thier #1 source of income.  

It will start working again in a few weeks.  I just wish they would clean it up so old abandoned member names are no longer shown after a certain period of inactivity.  And they also have certain members they show as online all the time just so they have some search results to show.  Hope this helps.   THis is what you get with a FREE service......BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE....you get what you PAY for.