Microsoft and Yahoo Search Deal Agreement

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System: The following 10 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/msn_microsoft_search/3961558.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 2:04 pm on July 29, 2009 <small>(utc +1)</small>

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It's official...

From Microsoft: Microsoft, Yahoo! Change Search Landscape [microsoft.com]
Global Deal Creates Better Choice for Consumers and Advertisers

Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers.

From Yahoo!: Microsoft, Yahoo! Change Search Landscape
Global Deal Creates Better Choice for Consumers and Advertisers
[yhoo.client.shareholder.com...]

[edited by: engine at 1:07 pm (utc) on July 29, 2009]
[edit reason] uri [/edit]

[tracking90]

There is no benefit for consumers if Yahoo and Bing are allowed to combine. It will hurt more advertisers than it will help. The only advertisers that will benefit are ones that rank well on MSN's natural listings but poorly on Yahoo. It will greatly reduce the amount of jobs in the industry which will in turn affect vendors who service Yahoo search.

All ppc advertisers are going to be worse off with fewer options. Consumers will have fewer options to choose from as well. This partnership will strengthen already existing oligopoly making it more difficult for new technology to come to the fore front.

Overall, this partnership will reduce jobs, stifle technology, increase advertising costs and reduce consumer options. Combining of search engines at this point, no matter which ones, is a detriment to the economy and the consumer.

[stevegpan2]

There is no benefit for consumers if Yahoo and Bing are allowed to combine -> that is only your opinion.

Most people think the combination will help competition. I agree. As in box game, a stronger boxer will be more competitive than 2 weak boxers.

Remember divide and conquer, if you are educated knowing this.

Go Bing !

[tracking90]

This is not boxing. This is economics and business. Your attempt at a metaphor is called a false analogy. You make want to look up the definition yourself.

Competition spurns innovation. You’re reducing competition when you remove a company from an industry composed of three major players. I agree with you that this move will make MSN a stronger player in the industry but it does nothing for consumers or advertisers.
-Yahoo will eliminate more search jobs than MSN will create due to the partnership.
-With fewer options, MSN and Google will have more control at setting rules to help increase their own profits at the detriment of advertisers and consumers.
-Consumers will have few options to choose from since there will only be two choices of natural and paid listings.

If there is any benefit from this partnership, it is to MSN and Yahoo share holders. MSN will now be the number two search provider without any clear danger from Ask. Yahoo can devote more focus on its core competency with display. Mergers of this sort rarely benefit consumers. It will not make consumers or advertisers spend more. It will only allow MSN to take a larger margin from it’s advertisers since there is less recourse.

Overall, this partnership will reduce jobs, stifle technology, increase advertising costs and reduce consumer options.

I would be interested in reading anyone’s logical thoughts on how they perceive this partnership beneficial for consumers and advertisers.

[Reno]

MSN will now be the number two search provider without any clear danger from Ask

You make a strong argument, but this is a development where both sides can make a persuasive case. Short of government intervention -- which brings it to a halt -- we won't know for a couple years how this will play out.

How I wish some company with very deep pockets would buy Ask and build them into the search engine they could/should be. They've been around long enough to know the ropes -- they are not the "new kid on the block" (read: cuil) -- and they have a killer domain name. If only they had the bucks to hire the top engineers, build the next generation interface, then put a bunch of money into promotion, so they'd eventually take a 25% market share. If Y/bing had the other 25% and G had 45% (5% to everyone else), we'd at least have some competition.

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[arubicus]

Competition spurns innovation. You�re reducing competition when you remove a company from an industry composed of three major players. I agree with you that this move will make MSN a stronger player in the industry but it does nothing for consumers or advertisers.

Keep in mind that competition does not necessarily mean the amount of competition as in multiple competitors. Shear strength of competition is the key whether it be 1 competitor or many. Remember also that during the rise of Google we had Yahoo delivering Google search results. You need strength to go after the Google search market not just innovation.

This could also make a primary opportunity to see a fresh face quietly emerge.

[Shaddows]

Having one competitor rather than 2 non-competitors is an increase in competition.

Or to put it another way, there are thousands of search engines around. The loss of one is negligible compared to that. Its just the thousands are vanishingly small and therfore irrelevant. Merging two irrelevant SEs to create a single visible one would be good.

So it is here, two visible but impotant SEs merged, now there will be an actual credible alternative to Google- one that has weight, and that can draw worthwile advertising money.

As others mentioned, it would be nice to have several powerful players. But I would rather have fewer but with some clout than an infinite number without any.

[walkman]

" I love this news. Bing loves my site, Yahoo does not. I'm sure there are other people who have just the exact opposite experience though, which stinks."

Inktomi /Yahoo banned me in ....2000 for interlinking when I had just started, and nothing has worked so far. The ban list was imported from Inktomi

>>"My understanding is that the two search engines will be amalgamated thus no one is really going to lose their rankings directly as a result of the two companies coming together."

Bing might pick and choose an idea here and there but too many chefs will spoil the broth. It's clear MSFT is happy with Bing. Is it even possible to integrate both indexes? I would think that both have covered "all" the internet by now.

Last year it was different, Yahoo would have powered them both.

[tangor]

Bing continues to deliver for my piddlin' site revealed. Also does the same for the commercial sites managed which are not revealed. Ask and Y! were bit players these days with great history and good tech, but lost in the snowstorm, so to speak. Live was okay when rolled out but Bing (the son/daugther) has been very workman from the get go. At this stage we're not looking at David and Goliath, we are looking at England v Germany 1940. And I suspect we'll see similar surprising results in the long term (4-5 years later). Merely an observation from an old fart who has lived through quite a bit of history up to this point.

[sem4u]

Yahoo will be able to quit its internet search deal with Microsoft if it fails to meet certain market share and revenue targets.

Yahoo can abandon the deal if Microsoft does not produce advertising revenue per search within a certain - undisclosed - percentage of Google's.

It can also walk away if the share of search queries falls below a certain percentage of the market.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

An interesting snippet from the BBC.

[Reno]

Another interesting step forward:

Microsoft to hire 400 from Yahoo

The software company also agrees to pay $150 million to facilitate a new partnership with the Internet search engine.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Microsoft has agreed to hire at least 400 Yahoo employees as part of the companies' new plan to share revenue on Internet search advertising, a regulatory filing showed Wednesday...

Read the... FULL STORY [money.cnn.com]

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