San Francisco, Apr 6 (IANS): One of the longest running web Q&A platforms Yahoo Answers, which has been operating since 2005, will shut down permanently on May 4.

Yahoo, which is now part of Verizon Media Group, announced the change at the top of the Yahoo Answers homepage.

The message links to a FAQ, which details the timeline of the shutdown. Starting April 20, the platform will no longer accept new submissions, the FAQ explains, The Verge reported on Monday.

A note sent to active Yahoo Answers members provides a little more detail about why Yahoo is shutting down the platform.

We launched Yahoo Answers sixteen years ago to help people around the world connect and share information. With you and millions of other users, we built the best place on the web to ask and answer questions on a variety of topics, creating a community of global knowledge sharing, the company said in the note.

While we could not have been prouder of what we accomplished together, we are reaching out today to let you know that we have decided to shut down Yahoo Answers on May 4, 2021, it added.

Users will also have to request their data until June 30 or it will be inaccessible after that.

The report says that users will no longer be able to post any new questions or answers from April 20.

If you would like to download a copy of your questions and answers you have posted, you can do this by signing into Your Privacy Dashboard and requesting a download, the company said.

You will be able to do this until June 30, 2021 after which your Yahoo Answers data will be securely deleted and no longer available, it added.

The closure of Yahoo Answers will not affect Yahoo account or other Yahoo services.