Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance Specifics

The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance combines the complementary strengths of Yahoo! and Microsoft to create a competitive choice in search with the scale to fuel sustained development. Both companies aim to ultimately enable searchers to find relevant results faster, and provide more value for advertisers and better results for web publishers.

How Yahoo! and Microsoft will work together:

  • Search ad inventory from Yahoo!, Microsoft and their respective partners will be combined into a new unified search marketplace.
  • Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to certain Yahoo! search technologies.
  • Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.

  • Full implementation of the terms of the search alliance is expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory clearance.

  • Yahoo!’s Sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients, and Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for all search campaigns.


How Yahoo! and Microsoft will compete:

  • 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.
  • Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
  • Yahoo! and Microsoft will innovate their own consumer search experiences to compete for search users and search queries.
  • Yahoo! and Microsoft will service their respective publishers, also known as affiliate search partners.
  • Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.