• Fast Company, Tuesday, August 2, 2011 10:07 AM

How has the Today box on Yahoo's home page achieved a 270% increase in clicks since 2009? "A sophisticated personalization algorithm--combined with ever-savvier editors," explains Fast Company. Yahoo began work on the so-called CORE personalization algorithm (which stands for Content Optimization and Relevance Engine) four years ago. It now generates 45,000 totally unique versions of the Today module every five minutes.

"The other impact it's having is on Yahoo's Front Page editors, who are getting savvier about what will appeal to readers, in large part due to the insights they're gaining from the algorithm," Fast Company writes. Yahoo generates a profile for each user based on information they've entered about themselves, like gender and age (if they're a registered Yahoo user), the places they've visited when they've come to Yahoo in the past, and the stories they've already seen during that particular visit.

Based on that information, CORE tries to figure out which of 50-100 "packages" the editors have created at any one time will be most interesting to that particular visitor. As a result, this year, the module is averaging a staggering 1 billion clicks per month in the U.S.

Read the whole story at Fast Company »