Last night, I spoke on air at Webmaster Radio (dot) FM about the imminent Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! Search deal. As expected, this morning (about 30-minutes ago), Bing announced on Twitter, linking to the official news that Microsoft Bing will power Yahoo!, and that Yahoo! will leverage its considerable relationships with major search advertisers to exclusively handle the advertising side. The deal is reputedly worth guaranteeing advertising dollars for Yahoo!, as Microsoft can easily afford to sweeten the deal that way.
Microsoft will also compensate Yahoo! from traffic and revenue resulting from traffic that originates from Yahoo! sites and affiliated network at a share of 88% over the fist 5 years. Panama and Search seems to have been given over to favor Microsoft Bing Search and Advertising platforms. That appears to be an admission by Yahoo! that Panama just failed to compete.
Paid Inclusion could lose its value when the switch to Bing happens. Unless Yahoo! can insert the feed somewhere with Bing search volume, there's no telling what will happen with inclusion deals past and present. It would be insane to leave that rich content, even when paid, on the table. That's literally leaving money on the table. Either Microsoft or Yahoo! will likely figure out a way to benefit by Paid Inclusion advertisers.
The key to making Paid Inclusion work, is understanding how it might not fit into Bing at all. If not, then finding search volume somewhere down the chain. Popular affiliated sites could make sense as a destination for the feeds. It's just that without being part of Bing, the value of Paid Inclusion is practically lost. Will Yahoo! control the first listings in Yahoo! Search? Or is it wholly over to Bing? Only time will tell what they decide to do. It's looking pretty bad for Paid Inclusion.
In the mean time, there's plenty of time. There needs to be regulatory approval of the deal. I said last night that I expect this would pass with government regulators. After approval, Yahoo! would make the transition within two years. That buys a lot of time for current Paid Inclusion deals to ponder the next strategy. Paid Inclusion will at least be as valuable now as it was yesterday until the deal is approved by government regulators. Even after that, the technical transition could take some months but no longer than two years. If you're an advertiser, plan ahead for this.
The things that are exciting about this news, is a rejuvenated platform to compete for search with Google. Whether that comes from Yahoo! past, Microsoft Bing's future, there's never a good reason to have just one search provider. As is the case with Microsoft's browser division for Internet Explorer, the company relaxed after winning dominant market share leaving room for new upstarts like Firefox. Google's search quality has been in a steady decline since it's wide appeal began in earnest (back in 2002).
Google's search quality has had to endure being the top search provider, and what that means in terms of commercial noise (spam) targeted specifically at undermining their search quality. Big online ecommerce over the last decades have proven that website owners and big box merchants alike will do practically anything to gain top search engine rankings. For the past 7 years, that has meant Google alone, and not Yahoo!. Commercial sites now have to plan for a strong likelihood that Yahoo! Bing will become a contender again.
Yes, Yahoo! could have been a contender. It flippantly dismissed the search back in 2002 when it saved a small fee for Inktomi powered search, and offered Google instead. Google capitalized precisely as Inktomi had warned Yahoo! they would, by just growing their site into the behemoth that it is today. Google's world changed from being a small upstart search engine based on hypertext analysis to a major software provider that competes with Microsoft. Microsoft is now in real danger that Google will make them less and less relevant.
That's today's thriving competitive search marketplace making its way into all sorts of industries. In my opinion, that's the real story here. Google has Android, Chrome OS and cloud computing with applications that traditionally were Microsoft's bread and butter: Office. Google has the online worldwide audience captured by their free offerings including Maps. This is threatening the very core of Microsoft's business in all ways except gaming and their XBox. Microsoft has not done very well with Windows Mobile or Zune.
The XBox, however, is a popular gaming console. During the next 10 years, the period that will coincide with this search deal, search will find its way into every conceivable device and access point across the globe. Apple just rejected Google Voice for the iPhone App marketplace yesterday. Microsoft is already poised as a player, poised as the player that Google must take on directly without flinching. There is room for both which makes the competition even more fierce for dominance in these down stream marketplaces. Just imagine the whole competition.
Stay tuned.
Microsoft will also compensate Yahoo! from traffic and revenue resulting from traffic that originates from Yahoo! sites and affiliated network at a share of 88% over the fist 5 years. Panama and Search seems to have been given over to favor Microsoft Bing Search and Advertising platforms. That appears to be an admission by Yahoo! that Panama just failed to compete.
Paid Inclusion could lose its value when the switch to Bing happens. Unless Yahoo! can insert the feed somewhere with Bing search volume, there's no telling what will happen with inclusion deals past and present. It would be insane to leave that rich content, even when paid, on the table. That's literally leaving money on the table. Either Microsoft or Yahoo! will likely figure out a way to benefit by Paid Inclusion advertisers.
The key to making Paid Inclusion work, is understanding how it might not fit into Bing at all. If not, then finding search volume somewhere down the chain. Popular affiliated sites could make sense as a destination for the feeds. It's just that without being part of Bing, the value of Paid Inclusion is practically lost. Will Yahoo! control the first listings in Yahoo! Search? Or is it wholly over to Bing? Only time will tell what they decide to do. It's looking pretty bad for Paid Inclusion.
In the mean time, there's plenty of time. There needs to be regulatory approval of the deal. I said last night that I expect this would pass with government regulators. After approval, Yahoo! would make the transition within two years. That buys a lot of time for current Paid Inclusion deals to ponder the next strategy. Paid Inclusion will at least be as valuable now as it was yesterday until the deal is approved by government regulators. Even after that, the technical transition could take some months but no longer than two years. If you're an advertiser, plan ahead for this.
The things that are exciting about this news, is a rejuvenated platform to compete for search with Google. Whether that comes from Yahoo! past, Microsoft Bing's future, there's never a good reason to have just one search provider. As is the case with Microsoft's browser division for Internet Explorer, the company relaxed after winning dominant market share leaving room for new upstarts like Firefox. Google's search quality has been in a steady decline since it's wide appeal began in earnest (back in 2002).
Google's search quality has had to endure being the top search provider, and what that means in terms of commercial noise (spam) targeted specifically at undermining their search quality. Big online ecommerce over the last decades have proven that website owners and big box merchants alike will do practically anything to gain top search engine rankings. For the past 7 years, that has meant Google alone, and not Yahoo!. Commercial sites now have to plan for a strong likelihood that Yahoo! Bing will become a contender again.
Yes, Yahoo! could have been a contender. It flippantly dismissed the search back in 2002 when it saved a small fee for Inktomi powered search, and offered Google instead. Google capitalized precisely as Inktomi had warned Yahoo! they would, by just growing their site into the behemoth that it is today. Google's world changed from being a small upstart search engine based on hypertext analysis to a major software provider that competes with Microsoft. Microsoft is now in real danger that Google will make them less and less relevant.
That's today's thriving competitive search marketplace making its way into all sorts of industries. In my opinion, that's the real story here. Google has Android, Chrome OS and cloud computing with applications that traditionally were Microsoft's bread and butter: Office. Google has the online worldwide audience captured by their free offerings including Maps. This is threatening the very core of Microsoft's business in all ways except gaming and their XBox. Microsoft has not done very well with Windows Mobile or Zune.
The XBox, however, is a popular gaming console. During the next 10 years, the period that will coincide with this search deal, search will find its way into every conceivable device and access point across the globe. Apple just rejected Google Voice for the iPhone App marketplace yesterday. Microsoft is already poised as a player, poised as the player that Google must take on directly without flinching. There is room for both which makes the competition even more fierce for dominance in these down stream marketplaces. Just imagine the whole competition.
Stay tuned.
As advertisers we like adcenter for the great conversion rates of Bing’s traffic.. With Yahoo though we are forced to buy clicks from junk partners that send nothing but fake clicks.. It’s a daily job to monitor all the new bad-domains to block.. And you have to PAY for all that.. :P
With the current merge of Yahoo and Bing let’s hope the new “team” will do it RIGHT by giving the advertisers the choice to pay only for real yahoo/bing searches.. just like Adwords and adcenter allow (for now?).
Just my 2 cents
Cheers!