The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is a major initiative between our companies to create a competitive choice in search for advertisers and consumers. The combined scale will assist both companies in speeding the pace of innovation to improve the search user experience, as well as help advertisers get better results and help improve monetization for partners.
When the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, both companies will continue to have differentiated consumer search experiences. However, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic and paid search results. Advertisers will have access to a combined audience of more than 529 million searchers worldwide.1
How Yahoo! and Microsoft will work together:
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Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to certain Yahoo! search technologies
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Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic and paid search results.
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Yahoo!’s Sales team will continue to exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Yahoo! will also continue to support self-service advertisers through the transition, then gradually transfer support to Microsoft.
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Microsoft will provide the platform for all search campaigns.
How Yahoo! and Microsoft will compete:
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The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance does not include each company's display advertising, web properties and products, email, instant messaging, or any other aspect of the companies' businesses.
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Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
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Yahoo! and Microsoft will innovate their own consumer search experiences to compete for search users and search queries.
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Yahoo! and Microsoft will service their respective publishers, also known as affiliate search partners.
Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
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