Microsoft has finally announced it’s 10-year deal with Yahoo!
Yahoo probably decided to ride Bing‘s (formerly Live Search) wave which both companies foresee to overtake Google‘s for the fact that Bing is “getting mostly positive reviews and picking up slightly more traffic”. Oh, is a slight success now a measure equal to a hundred percent sureness?
comScore Inc‘s June report showed that the Microsoft and Yahoo combined U.S. search engine users market share is just 28% while Google handles 65% leaving 7% market share to the rest of the other search engines.
“Google is even more dominant in the rest of the world, with a global share of 67 percent compared to a combined 11 percent for Microsoft and Yahoo.“
He Said, She Said
Google spokesman, Adam Kovacedich, said: “There has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users…”.
Yahoo Chief Executive, Carol Bartz, said: “This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo, our users, and the industry”.
Search Engine Tactics
“Microsoft is doubling down on Internet search at the same time Google is attacking Microsoft’s bread-and-butter business of software for personal computers.“
Three weeks ago, Google announced their new product, Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system to be available by the second half of next year.
The Yahoo-Microsoft deal is yet to be closed early next year, and then “it could take another two years before all the pieces of the partnership are in place”.
As Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) professionals, one thing’s for sure, significant changes like these shall be perceived as important for improving our users’ experience of the web.