SearchInfluence

As we reported in an earlier post, there are things to consider now that the Bing and Yahoo alliance is coming so near. Starting sometime in August or September, Yahoo’s organic search results will be fully provided by Bing, which will increase their organic search market share from 11% to 27%. Wouldn’t it be great if this meant an end to Yahoo Local, leaving you with only Bing and Google local listings to worry about?

While Google has reigned supreme when it comes to optimization, now may be the time to reassess your Bing strategy. As we mentioned in an earlier post, Yahoo anticipates that their organic search results will be fully powered by Microsoft sometime in August or September. However, Yahoo has already begun testing Microsoft’s organic and paid listings. Up to 25% of their current organic search results come from Bing, while up to 3.5% of paid listings can be from their AdCenter.

While the results may be coming from Microsoft, Yahoo assures that they will retain their familiar format. They offer up the following image, where the boxed areas are those that come from Microsoft:

Last week, Yahoo sent out emails explaining how the merger with MSN/Bing would effect paid search advertiser.  The most interesting piece of information the email provided was about the transition to Bing search algorithm in early Fall.

Organic Search Transition
To date, we’ve focused most of our communications to you on the paid search transition to adCenter. However, another key aspect of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is the transition of Yahoo! organic search results (those found on the main body of the page). Assuming our testing continues to yield high quality results, we anticipate that our organic search results will be powered by Bing beginning in the August/September timeframe.

Yahoo Fails At Search, Tries Its Hand At Being A “Pretty Woman”

"Your Yahoo! May Look Different Today!"

It is a sad day when search engines are reduced to stalking celebrities to keep themselves relevant.

That is the thought I had when I saw the latest Yahoo TV commercial. Since their merger with Microsoft was announced, Yahoo has been trying to carve out a niche for itself as a entertainment news site (seriously how many E!s, TMZs, OhNoTheyDidnts, and Superficials must we have! How are all the celebrity bloggers going to eat and stay in white MSpaint to draw on photos?). They are even going as far as to declared themselves THE NUMBER ONE visited site for such frivolous news  – when in all honesty, they are including Yahoo Search,Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Games (noticed I didn’t include the “!” because there just isn’t anything exciting about Yahoo anymore) into this data.