After over a year and a half of negotiation both Microsoft and Yahoo have finally come to a deal which is set to challenge Google’s 65% share of the online search.

Under the terms of the new 10 year deal, searched on Yahoo.com will be powered by Microsoft ‘s brand new search engine Bing and Yahoo will be responsible for attracting and selling premium advertising.

Microsoft is set to pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on the Yahoo website and Microsoft will also have the rights to integrate Yahoo search Technology into its existing search platform. Yahoo is reported to have said that the new agreement will generate the company an annual income of over $500 million.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said that the deal will allow Microsoft to “create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company.”

In a joint statement from Microsoft and Yahoo, it was said that “advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70% of all search.” This was obviously an attack on Google’s dominance in the marketplace.

Article by Creative SEO

According to a new report by Chikita, Bing users are over 50% more likely to click on an advertisement on a third party website than both Google and Yahoo generated users. According to Chikita the click rate averages are as follows:

Google: 0.97%

Yahoo: 1.24%

Bing: 1.5%

It looks as though Bing has made some good gains since its launch at the end of May. Although growth has been good and Bing has made up some ground on its competitors it is unlikely to directly affect the existing search marketplace. Microsoft still need to strike a deal with Yahoo to broaden the Companies advertising reach and start to make an impact on Google’s monumental popularity. AdAge is reporting that that a deal between both Microsoft and Yahoo is due to be released anytime this week. The article mentions that the payment structure has been the main issue preventing the deal from going forward. Yahoo has requested a revenue share rather than upfront payments and revenue guarantees.

“Execs in Redmond never conceived of the deal as an upfront purchase of Yahoo’s search traffic but as a deal in which Yahoo would be compensated from a share of revenue from the sale of search ads. Yahoo would be allowed to sell search ads on Bing.com as well as its own site, giving it more search inventory to sell and making it a bigger player in the search sales front. It would also immediately be able to save millions by not having to maintain its own search infrastructure.

The latest terms of the deal underscore Microsoft’s devotion to developing and owning technology vs. selling media. The deal won’t make it a bigger seller of online advertising but it would allow it to eliminate a search-technology competitor in Yahoo and consolidate roughly 30% of the search marketplace on its own platform — a large enough share, CEO Steve Ballmer seems to believe, to dent Google’s dominance”

If the article at AdAge is correct then Yahoo would still be able to sell search and display to its existing advertisers. Let’s hope the article is correct and deal is announced this week.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Reuters is reported as saying that Yahoo is currently seeking to sell its Job Search website, HotJobs, to one of its competitors. The Rumour currently surrounds Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.

The past week has seen many rumours floating around about Yahoo and Microsoft. If we were to consider these rumours as true then the sale of HotJobs would make total sense. But this does lead to the possibility that Yahoo is considering getting completely out of the search engine game. HotJobs would not be an asset that would be of interest to Microsoft and therefore would potentially be sold before any agreement was made.

We can understand why Yahoo would want to concentrate on advertising but moving away from search would be a very big move for Yahoo.

What do you think, Leave your comments below and share your opinion!

Article by Creative SEO

Microsoft Office 2010 has been released for its first stage of testing, the new product includes a suit of web based tools, has Google rattled Microsoft’s gold plated cage?

Microsoft Office is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Office software world, but there’s a new kid in town, a lightweight, fast punching, crowd pleasing challenger, Google Docs, who is currently running circles around Microsoft office in an online arena. Office needs to shape up and adapt to the changing needs of the consumer and Microsoft hope that Office 2010 is the product to maintain their market leading position.

Microsoft office has always been a paid-for software application, the move into an online environment will seem a little alien to Microsoft especially with Google Doc’s being free to use. As yet little information has been released about potential online pricing but it is hoped that Microsoft will offer the product for free. If we were to look at existing Microsoft charges online, we will see that a $3 per month charge will allow you to use the Desktop Workers suite of tools and a $15 per month charge will get you access to Exchange and Sharepoint services. With this in mind a potential charge could be extremely low or based on a small annual fee.

Google recently announced the removal of the Beta version of Google Docs and the up and coming launch of Google Docs for business, a new suite of online business tools. The removal of the Beta label will allow more business users to use the product and trust in a completed version of the software. Google Docs for business is a direct challenge to the up and coming Microsoft Office 2010 suite of tools and it is very evident that Microsoft is taking this challenge very seriously. Google want to recruit more business users but it is unclear as to whether the business version of Google Docs will be free-to-use or a charged for service. Google decision on pricing will be very influential and will set a market standard, but will Microsoft feel they need to compete or will they rely on the long established brand to add value to their product?

There are interesting times ahead and the competition between Microsoft and Google can only add value to both products, offering more assessable online tools which will definitely improve the user’s productivity and user experience.

Written by Creative SEO a UK Search Engine Optimisation Consultancy.

Hotmail has added some new Bing featured to its email interface allowing users to add content to outgoing emails. The feature is called “Quick Add” and allows you to include a variety of Bing content including images, videos, maps, restaurant reviews and movie times. The new feature is available to Hotmail users in Australia, Canada, China, India, US, and the UK.

The feature is simple to use, just start to compose a new email message, select the content you require from the quick add box which is on the right hand side, search the Bing search box and then insert your results directly into your email. “Bing!” it’s that simple, although can’t we do this already with cut and paste?



Actually it is a handy feature and it does speed up finding content to add to an email you’re composing but normally a user would have already found what they wanted to send to someone before writing an email. Not really sure how useful this feature is but it works great.

Article by Creative SEO News