The Yahoo + Bing Search Alliance: What It Means For Your Business
So, What’s the Deal?
Back in 2009 Microsoft finally struck a 10-year deal to partner up with Yahoo. The deal was laid out so that Yahoo would control client relationships for premium search advertisers while Microsoft would power searches via Bing. Although each company will continue to maintain a separate display advertising businesses and even compete against one another, both self-serve advertising services will run through Microsoft’s AdCenter platform.
Essentially the deal was struck to give Yahoo some revenue (they get paid by Microsoft on a yearly and traffic basis as part of the contract) and to give Microsoft a chance to catch up with Google by reaching into Yahoo’s existing ad network to expand its own.
As of writing this article, (early July) the timeline for any algorithmic migrations were in the process of being tested behind the scenes (see timeline below). We tested out searching the keyword phrase “Mexican restaurant Richmond Va” to see if Yahoo and Bing would return synonymous results. Below are screenshots of each of the 3 search engine results pages (we queried Google as a comparison):
As you can see Bing and Yahoo are both returning some significantly differing results—and thus the migration to have both engines return the same results had yet to happen.
What it Means if You’re a Customer
For the consumer you won’t really see any noticeable changes. The branding for both search engines will remain the same. What’s going on behind the scenes, however, will only stand to benefit you in the form of a better user experience. The increased competition between these companies predicts a positive net market impact—whether that means that Google responds by innovating more or Microsoft / Yahoo begin eating up marketing share from Google. Either way that means people are working harder to come up with better products/services. And that means the customer gets a search engine that’s faster and better than anything today.
What it Means if You’re a Business
If you’re a business owner here are some important items to be aware of:
- If you have an Microsoft AdCenter account, you will be able to maintain and manage both your Bing and Yahoo campaigns from that account
- Yahoo will be your one-stop support team for both engines
- Microsoft / Yahoo are shooting for a 2010 “holiday season” transition of everything (i.e. moving organic and paid search to one underlying platform)—however, they have openly stated that they could push that date back (to February 2011) if they run into any serious issues that will delay the launch for the holiday season
- In the future, advertisers will not have the ability to target only Bing or only Yahoo traffic—though specific targets within Yahoo’s syndicated network will be available to advertisers
- Paid ad titles are shorter in AdCenter than in Yahoo—this means you’ll have to go in an shorten title copy prior to the transition
- Keyword mapping is a bit different with AdCenter than in Yahoo—specifically, you’ll need to be prepared to bid on misspellings and plural keywords that you had automatically in Yahoo in the new AdCenter
- The minimum cost per bid through the new system (AdCenter) will remain at $0.05 (increasing from Yahoo’s minimum of $0.01)
- Both companies will continue to control their own consumer search experiences (what you see on the page) so although they’re powered by the same engine some of the results may differ slightly (e.g. Bing shows 3 ads on the right hand side versus Yahoo only showing 2)
What Do We Recommend?
The ability to cut a deal and shell out greenbacks is one thing—it’s a completely different animal to actually compete with—and in this instance innovate faster than Google’s rapidly advancing machine.
It will remain to be seen if Microsoft—an unimaginative company in the public’s eye—will be able to gain any ground on Google. In Yahoo’s case, it will be interesting to see if they’re simply tied to a sinking Bing ship.
One thing that you cannot ignore is that the combined share (according to Nielsen and comScore numbers for April/May 2010) for Yahoo and Bing is close to 30%. Comparatively, Google maintains approximately 64% of total search engine volume.
These numbers are intriguing for a couple different reasons. One, it shows that now Google has a real competitor to worry about. Two, an increase in these numbers plays an important role in where people put their advertising dollars. The more share volume you command, the more advertising dollars you draw. An increase in share volume for Yahoo/Bing could help them gain the momentum they need to actually compete with Google.
It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds over the rest of 2010. How each company reacts and if the Yahoo/Microsoft Search Alliance can truly make up any ground on Google.
The bottom line is that if you currently have an online marketing strategy you need to prepare for how the transition from Yahoo to Bing will affect you. If you’re not in the online marketing game at the moment, you need to take a serious look at how it could help your business. With billions of searches being conducted online each day and technological advances keeping people constantly wired—it is a trend that cannot be ignored—no matter what business you’re in.
At NetSearch Direct we’ll be constantly monitoring the latest data, forums, blogs and news outlets regarding the Yahoo/Bing partnership. We are keeping our Clients informed and helping them implement strategies that allow for a smooth transition to one AdCenter system.
If you have any questions regarding any of the Yahoo, Bing or Google search systems, please email or call Kate! 804-228-4400 or ksnowa@netsearchdirect.com.