Microsoft and Yahoo have just announced that they\u2019ll be teaming up in an effort to grab market share from Google.<\/p>\n
The deal centres on a ten-year contract, which will see Yahoo listing Bing\u2019s organic results on its SERPs (search engine results pages), and placing adCenter ads instead of Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) adverts. The deal also offers Microsoft the opportunity to incorporate any of Yahoo\u2019s search technology into its own platform.<\/p>\n
Good News<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s good to see that Google\u2019s competition hasn\u2019t given up. I\u2019d hate to think that Google would start getting complacent (*cough cough*).<\/p>\n
Yahoo and Microsoft know that they won\u2019t be able to compete against Google unless they join forces. This merger will mean (at current rates anyway) that Microsoft\u2019s search market share could be over 5%. This is still chicken feed compared to Google\u2019s 85%+ slice of the market, but it\u2019s almost double what it was achieving before.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also worth remembering that Bing has some really nice features…<\/p>\n
The \u2018related search\u2019 feature returns a greater number of interesting and useful links than Google\u2019s similarly-named feature, and Bing\u2019s desire to include (nearly) live search data (by implementing Twitter into its SERPs) is admirable.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not convinced though that these features will be enough to take users from Google, even if it does show they\u2019re giving it a good shot.<\/p>\n
Another good point is that YSM will become irrelevant. Personally, I always found YSM a bit of a chore, so I\u2019m glad that we\u2019ll be able to reach Yahoo with Microsoft adCenter. At least it has a desktop campaign editor.<\/p>\n
Conversion rates on adCenter are also generally better than YSM, so seeing increased volumes here will be very welcome.<\/p>\n
Bad News<\/b>
\nAlthough the news has just been announced, the roll-out could take up to 24 months to complete \u2014 and it won\u2019t even start until it has regulatory approval.\u00a0 As usual with these things, the US will get the implementation first. In the UK, we\u2019ll have to wait and see how things unfold in the States before we get to test it out.<\/p>\n
Also, as anyone who works in or around the web will tell you, two years is a very long time. One of my favourite things about this industry is the speed at which it moves, and how adaptable we need to be to keep up. I can\u2019t help but wondering if this integration plan is so long that, by the time everything\u2019s in place, it will be too late for the Microsoft\/Yahoo partnership to start its fight-back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microsoft and Yahoo have just announced that they\u2019ll be teaming up in an effort to grab market share from Google. The deal centres on a ten-year contract, which will see…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"related_service":[61,63],"related_industry":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"card":"