Yahoo is reportedly redirecting directory pages to web search pages. Matt McGee at Search Engine Land received a tip from Sean Carlos about it, and confirmed it with Yahoo.

Apparently since as early as December, Yahoo has been doing this in four countries: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Yahoo told McGee, "As part of Yahoo!’s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others."

While the move has gone largely unnoticed all year, as Matt points out, it is certainly no secret that Yahoo is "scaling back" in some areas. Yahoo famously put an end to the once huge Geocities a while back, not to mention various other products. Of course, they’re handing search over to Microsoft this year as well (for a while at least).

In Yahoo’s note to McGee, it said the local versions of Yahoo Search are a "superior experience" to the directory experience, but the company said it has no plans to close the U.S. version. Does that mean the U.S. Yahoo Search experience isn’t considered a superior experience to the directory?

Read Yahoo’s whole response at Search Engine Land.

Do you still need the Yahoo Directory? Share your thoughts.