Yesterday Yahoo and Microsoft announced a major partnership between their respective search marketing departments. This deal ended a long rumored courtship of Yahoo by Microsoft with several attempts of either partnership or out-right purchase by Microsoft. In the simplest terms,
“Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”
Bing will now power the core technologies behind Yahoo’s search engine, while Yahoo can continue to build upon Bing and control their own user experience. The Bing engine itself will also be allowed to integrate Yahoo’s search technologies on it’s own site. From the official press release, here are a few of the key terms:
- The term of the agreement is 10 years;
- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
There were many more details announced at the press conference including some of the basic financial terms, so we suggest checking out the rest of the press release. But in regards to the actual search engines, what does this mean for the small business owner running an ecommerce site? How will this effect the ability of users to find your site?
Small Business Implications
There is no reason to panic right now about where your website traffic will be coming from. The deal will take at around 24 month to complete the full global transition of Yahoo! Powered by Bing. It will start with federal approval, which should take about 3-6 months. Reports are that once it’s all complete, Bing will have about a 28% share of the market. It’s still a far cry from Google’s market share, but two heads are always better than one, and the partnership should keep Google on their feet and push further innovation. But this move definitely signals the end of Yahoo in the search business. At one time Yahoo search was even powered by Google, but that partnership ended in 2004.
For your website, optimizing for Bing will become very important. We have talked before about some tips for using Bing effectively for ecommerce. Registering your local listings, using Webmaster Central, and/or advertising through AdCenter will become even more important within the next year. SEOmoz also has a great post today about the impact of this deal on SEO.
It was a pretty big announcement yesterday (even if it’s all about the #2 spot in the search industry) and we will certainly see much more details and news about “Bingahoo” over the course of the next months. If you want even more information, there are certainly enough coverage to go around: TechCrunch, Mashable, and Marketing Pilgrim.
