In a statement of the obvious Yahoo has admitted it will never top Google in the search field, the most profitable area of online advertising.

Susan Decker, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, said: “We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google. It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”

Danny Sullivan, editor of London-based SearchEngineWatch.com, commented: “It kind of makes you wonder about how serious they are about search. It really ought to be their goal, whether it’s realistic or not.”

Yahoo is always the dark horse, though, and sometimes it’s easier to be in second place.