The sacred space that is the Yahoo! homepage is now providing exposure to websites outside of the Yahoo! network. This provides an invaluable traffic opportunity for websites with feature worthy content.

According to reports, Yahoo! started publishing links to external content in the “featured” section last Thursday. This is a significant move considering they have kept such exposure solely for Yahoo! content in the past.

The move is a part of Yahoo!’s attempts to become the gateway to the “entire” internet (well at least what Yahoo! has indexed) for more online users. This is an important move aimed at encouraging more people to start their online journey at Yahoo! and more than likely boost their search volumes.

“We are the only one of the old portals to do that… We are linking to the best stuff around the Web.” said Tapan Bhat (VP of Front Doors at Yahoo!).

Information featured on the homepage will be selected by editors, with content from Forbes, Time, and the Wall Street Journal already receiving prime exposure. Yahoo! suggests that smaller sites will be featured as related links to avoid traffic overload.

Getting exposure on the Yahoo! homepage will be fairly difficult for the “average joe” website, but at least the opportunity now exists for sites that publish important news and content. It will also be a major attempt to draw users back – especially those who have reverted to search engines and other new portals for their browser homepage.

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