Last Friday, the deal was sealed, Google to Keep AOL. The forums discussing this today include; Search Engine Roundtable Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums, but the most interesting thread, may be at Cre8asite Forums.
The Cre8asite thread named The Craziest Thing About The Google/AOL deal brings out one statement from a New York Times article that says;
"Finally, around 9 p.m., Richard D. Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner told Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, that he would accept Google's recently sweetened offer. Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before."
Now it does not say specifically if AOL will get a boost in the paid listings or organic results. It may also have to do with the OneBox results you often see in the vertical creep of the Google SERPs. Either way, this may be the first time anyone at Google publicly said or gave the impression that they would "give favored placement to content" to any site.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
