It is official, Yahoo and Microsoft have approval to move forward with their search deal and they are not wasting any time with that. You can read many of the stories on Techmeme to catch up, but let me quote the official press release, at least a snippet:
SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - News) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO - News) announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.
Important Facts for Webmasters & Advertisers:
- Algorithmic search on Yahoo will be powered by Bing in the United States by the end of 2010.
- Search advertisers will be migrated from YSM to adCenter prior to the 2010 holiday season, but may wait until 2011.
- All global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.
- Yahoo BOSS, Search Monkey & SiteExplorer are all still up in the air but if Yahoo is not crawling the web, Bing would have to build out their own tools going forward.
- Also, check out the Yahoo Transition Center for additional details
Of course, most of you know my thoughts about where this puts Yahoo. Yahoo, in my opinion, is out of search now. And most of you agree, the poll we ran a week or so ago, has over a hundred responses (see poll pie chart above) and 60% said Yahoo is not in search, 20% are hoping they are but are unsure. Just sad.
Forum discussion at many places:
- Search Deal Approved, WebmasterWorld
- Microsoft-Yahoo search deal approved, DigitalPoint Forums
- Yahoo and Adcenter Announcement, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Microsoft And Yahoo! Team Up To Take On Google, HighRankings Forums
- The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, Search Engine Watch Forums
- The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, DigitalPoint Forums
- The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, WebmasterWorld
- Yahoo & Bing = ???, Google AdWords Help
