I am so tired about writing about the Microsoft and Yahoo talks rumors, so I am sure you are tired reading about it. But over the course of the past week or two, the rumors that a deal is going to happen "soon" is pretty strong. Exactly when, is unknown, but the rumors seem really strong.
The question a WebmasterWorld thread asks is should SEOs start preparing? Even if we know a deal is going to take place, what should SEOs prepare for?
I remember in early 2004, Yahoo was shopping for search engines to buy, so they no longer have to be dependent on Google's search engine. They were expected to use Inktomi which an engine they bought earlier, but then they bought AllTheWeb and Alta Vista. They made changed to both engines and released their own flavor of Yahoo Search.
Back then, SEOs were preparing for a version of Inktomi, but it turned out to be it's own beast.
In my opinion, if Yahoo would do some deal with Microsoft, I really don't think we would see a Yahoo flavored Bing that soon. If any deal is announced, I suspect several months of discussions and announcements before anything changes with Yahoo Search. So I strongly doubt we need to prepare for a Yahoo flavored Bing today.
You should be thinking Bing anyway, cause that engine is getting a lot of buzz recently and market share is increasing (depending on who you ask).
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
