There has been a swarm of articles and blog posts in the last 24 hours discussing the deal reached between Yahoo and Microsoft.  With yesterday’s signing, the landscape of SEO and paid search will be dramatically changing.

What the Deal Entails
The 10-year agreement gives Microsoft control over Yahoo! Search while Yahoo will now focus on promoting the other aspects of its properties (e-mail, messenger, games and puzzles, news, etc).  Yahoo’s site will continue functioning as it currently does, but once the deal is finalized, Bing will power the search on Yahoo.com. The agreement gives Microsoft exclusive rights to Yahoo!’s search technologies and the rights to integrate those technologies into their existing platform. Additionally, Microsoft’s Bing will exclusively provide paid and organic search on Yahoo! Web sites.

Implications
Right now based on data from Comscore’s June 2009 release, MSN holds about 8% of the search market while Yahoo holds 20% and Google 65%. Once the deal takes effect, MSN will hold approximately 30% of the search market, becoming a larger threat to Google. Now that there are only two contenders, it gives advertisers more opportunities to be recognized.

*Figure 1 per Comscore

From a paid search perspective, it has positive and negative implications. On the positive side, the deal will result in time-savings for PPC managers and developers. From a developer standpoint, there will be one less API to deal with. From a campaign manager’s standpoint, there will be one less keyword list and interface to deal with. A downside is costs-per-clicks will inevitably increase as more advertisers compete on both spaces and bids increase.

Additionally, the deal is encouraging to paid search managers as Microsoft will continue to use their already-existing PPC tool, adCenter, instead of Yahoo!’s tools, which are notorious for being difficult to use. Though Google’s Adwords interface still outshines adCenter, as does Google’s customer service, Microsoft’s adCenter is a definite step-up from Yahoo!’s PPC interface, making the deal that much more encouraging to PPC advertisers.

What does this mean for you?
In the near future, nothing. Because the agreement has to pass the proper regulatory bodies before even beginning implementation, the search market won’t start seeing the effects of this for some time.  The official press release states that full implementation will not be reached until two years after the deal receives regulatory approval.  Exactly how long will this process take? We’re not sure yet.  For now, just be aware the change is coming down the road and start thinking of steps that you may take to be sure you’re ready to take action when the time comes.

What does Rise Think?
While it’s bittersweet to see the pioneer of the search engines take a back seat, we’re excited to see how the Yahoo – Bing partnership will reflect on the robustness of the combined platform.  In our opinion, Google Adwords has been leaps and bounds ahead of MSN/Live/Bing and Yahoo in terms of the online interface, tools offered, and customer service.

As all paid search marketers know, it is very rare that everything goes perfect (especially during a setup) in any of three major engines.  When complications arise and you call customer service, isn’t it a beautiful thing when they resolve the issue immediately and you can quickly move on?  That scenario plays out much more often through Adwords customer service than it does with Yahoo and Bing.  So now let’s say you make the customer service call to any of the three major engines and the person does not immediately know the answer.  I’m going to have to research this and get back to you… ok, fair enough. Now, the waiting game ensues.  I’ll bet you money you’re going to wait a lot longer (often days) to get that ever so vital answer out of Yahoo and Bing than Adwords.

Here at Rise, we hope that the Yahoo/Bing partnership will lead to a search engine that is easier to use for all involved.  We would like to see customers, advertisers and campaign managers who are happy to interact with YaBing or MicroHoo.  How do you keep all stakeholders happy? You help them achieve the results they desire in an easy and efficient manner on all fronts.  Although our attitude towards Yahoo and Bing seems somewhat negative, there are positive attributes to each company that will hopefully contribute to a greater whole.  We would like to see this merger succeed and make search less of a pseudo-monopoly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing Agency, Paid Search (PPC), Rise Interactive, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.