Yahoo shuts down Answers service after 15 years and removes content

Yahoo is shutting down Answers, a site where users can ask and answer questions. From April 20, the site will go into a read-only mode and the website will be removed on May 4. Users can download their own questions and answers.

The Yahoo Answers website has a notice about the upcoming shutdown. After May 4, visitors who visit the page will be redirected to the Yahoo home page. The content of Yahoo Answers will therefore no longer be available, but users will be able to download their own questions and answers until June 30.

To download proprietary Answers content, users must submit a request through their Yahoo account. It can take up to thirty days to process. It is not possible to download the questions and answers of other users in this way. However, that information is publicly available online, which makes it possible to create an archive in other ways.

According to The Register, the Yahoo Answers team writes in a message to users that the service has become less and less popular in recent years. Yahoo therefore no longer wants to use resources to maintain Answers. The service existed for almost sixteen years. Yahoo emphasizes that other services and Yahoo accounts will not be changed.