Yang's Golden Rule: "Do Unto Others as Microsoft Would Do to Yahoo"

Yahoo (YHOO) isn’t letting the looming threat of a Microsoft (MSFT) acquisition ruin its own acquisitive appetite. This morning the company announced plans to purchase Web analytics outfit Tensa Kft, better known as IndexTools. Yahoo expects the purchase to bolster its current analytics offerings, which haven’t evolved much since it inherited Keylime Software’s paid-search management tools as part of its 2003 acquisition of Overture.

IndexTools “will give our customers tools for monitoring and analyzing Web sites and marketing campaigns, providing valuable insights into key metrics, traffic patterns and performance,” Bassel Ojjeh, head of Yahoo Strategic Data Solutions, wrote in a post to Yahoo Anecdotal. “And that means consumers are more likely to see marketing content that’s engaging and relevant.”

One would hope so. Because at this point, Yahoo doesn’t need to simply distinguish itself from Google (GOOG) Analytics. It needs to catch up to it.