Microsoft and Yahoo Team Up To Challenge Google
Posted on by Ryan Deiss in Search Engine Optimization
It’s official!
Microsoft announced today that they have struck a deal to power Yahoo’s search, while at the same time Yahoo will be powering paid ads on Bing.com (Microsoft’s new search platform…formerly known as MSN).
You can get all the details here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx
…and here:
http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx
So why is this good news for marketers?
It’s simple. With Yahoo and Microsoft now a team, Google finally has some competition in the search market. This means:
- Ad costs may go down, and…
- Google may stop being such enormous jerks to their advertisers (which could mean less “Google Slaps”)
Obviously this is just my speculation, and the deal doesn’t go final until 2010 so don’t expect anything to change overnight, but competition is (almost) always a good thing for consumers, so for now, at least, I’m chearing this deal.
Comment below and let me know what you think…
-Ryan
Free Training Event
John
15. Oct, 2009
Good News, I hope. It will take some time for all of this to take place, but it is sorely needed for all of us. Google is to big for their pants.
Tom Harvey
29. Sep, 2009
Thanks for the update, sounds great for those of us dealing in PPC and will be interesting to see how the market pans out once the JV starts to kick into gear and build momentum.
Jerett
28. Sep, 2009
Wow, i personally think that Google is unbeatable, who doesn’t like there basic streamlined pages?
c
26. Sep, 2009
I here more competition but I see MSN just monopolizing first the os world then desktop envireonment (Internet Explorer) office products now Search Engines.
Monopolies destroy competition this is really bad news more than good but not something so bad that you should lose sleep over it.
When I think of MSN I still see Microsoft a company that will sue at the first chance to bring a company down or even worse canive.
I still remember the E mail incident that Microsoft sent among them selves (inside company records showed in a herring to congress that they were trying to use Sun Micro systems to buckle IBM) the end results no more important emails allowed inside MSN.
Beleave me ask.cm will be next and so on till there is no real options just MSN.
P.S. there is still hope tho IBM could join Google in the Search Engine business to stav of MSN, how would that work you might ask, IBM has the most patents of all and they could keep sueing each other till MSN, Yahoo, Googl, Ask, dogpile, tuboscout and any others were all BLUE in the face, that dont leave much room for upcomeing competition does it!
P.P.S. monpolies kill little business first, and little business is tomorrows competition
Iman Yusef-Yahya
25. Sep, 2009
Reminds me of when telecom was de-regulated – never been a fan of monopolies. Competition is healthy. It forces folks to consider the consumer, not just themselves.
I’m all for driving PPC costs down.
Emrick
06. Sep, 2009
Where there is competition, the consumers always benefit. I am thrilled that at last this is happening. I just hope that this is not the end of it. We need more competitors.
The quality, the choice, and the service will raise for the good of all of us! Great news! Cheers!
Elmerante Acacio
12. Aug, 2009
Well that is a good news Bing and Yahoo team up to challenge Google. However Bing and Yahoo are to far behind to compete with
Google. It may take 10 to 15 years before they can come close to
capture the market trend.
Internists
04. Aug, 2009
This is end of Yahoo. It will slowly bleed to death.
Bob Harmon
03. Aug, 2009
A little compitetion is always a good thing, it causes everyone to improve how they do things. This is no different.
Everyone always says to “google it”, now maybe it be turn into “just bing it”…
MSN and Yahoo tend to get different kinds of searchers than Google and if these 2 giants do combine, it can only help savy marketers.
the IRF
01. Aug, 2009
I like the feel of Bing.com
I think there is something there which will support people in a way that Google misses.
Bing caught and showed the Imagery of the male-support Logo out of my website [IRREVERENTreluctantFUTURIST.com], even though it is not quiet functional yet. {It is supposed to support balance in the world by guiding individuals to their own personal real balance.}
That was a happy surprise for me. The search engine has my support because it found the male-support LOGO. {Don’t get shook stimulus-design Beings, as male-designs move to real balance, so, too, are you supported. Also, the design is imprinted to support all in this illusion dimension.}
Florence Bernard
01. Aug, 2009
Well, I think that’s good news for everybody using the Internet… More possibilities. Maybe they’ll come up with a new revolutionary system, so let’s be on the lookout so that we can be first to implement it!
Mastermind Internet Marketing
01. Aug, 2009
Google slaps are not that bad. People deserve to get slapped if they are doing their advertisment wrong.
It’s just like getting fined for breaking the law…
~Igor
Rosanne Dausilio
31. Jul, 2009
I think it’s great news – and Microsoft and Yahoo have vision that we may not even have landing on our viewfinders yet! Bing is advertised on all my local radio stations. This should level the playing field and can’t but help all of us.
Houseofmax
31. Jul, 2009
WOW!
Everyone is seening green at the end of the rainbow. It’s about time we have some real competition in the SE world.
Can’t wait!
Susan
31. Jul, 2009
Competition seems to always be good for the consumer. I work from home running a small business completely on-line. Marketing around any one single company can never be a good thing.
Susan
31. Jul, 2009
Competition always seems like a good thing for the consumer. Promoting our businesses to conform to any one company standards is too close to a monopoly.
Abdulla Neevin
31. Jul, 2009
Finally,there will be affordable advertising costs every one hopefully, and I was waiting for this day…for some one to grab Google’s collars and give a taste of it’s own monopoly and slaps. I hope they finally understand the definition of sharing and generosity.
Richard
30. Jul, 2009
Hi Ryan,
I couldn’t agree with you more.
Eunice
30. Jul, 2009
This is good news we just have to wait and see.
Vince
30. Jul, 2009
I’m eager to see what happens. I still think its all about search experience. As a consumer I find Google the best search experience. As a PPC reseller I can’t wait to see what the Yahoo/Bing agreement does to the market.
Bill Covert
30. Jul, 2009
Right on… competition is the healthiest form of the free marketplace. Time for great innovation! The “accelerator for success” wants to interview Bill Gates about this… look for it soon. This is DREAM BAR CAFE in action – I love it! ~Bill
Chris
30. Jul, 2009
For PPC it’s great news – for SEO it’s absolutely awful!
Yahoo are the ONLY search engine that provides worthwhile link data – MSN actually stopped doing it at all a year ago. So that means in future having a choice of:-
1) Yahoo/Bing – NO link data
2) Google – pick-a-number link data
Still feeling good? I know I’m not.
David Norden Secret Marketing Links
30. Jul, 2009
Microsoft-Yahoo team will not change the game rules, and I think this is very bad news for the competion, and won’t help marketeers . Why ? Because Microsoft arranged that in the agreement Yahoo will STOP doing research and development, whish is the worst for Yahoo. Microsoft wanted to buy Google who luckiliy refused, now they halted Yahoo with this agreement, but won’t be able to stop Google. The real jerk in the history of internet has been Microsoft with his monopolistic views. I think they do good work with the Bing engine, and I love the way they do image searches and more. But they are not offering a program similar to adsense for marketeers internationnally (still wonder why they refuse to put content to sites outside the US). Annyhow Google will not change after this deal, only Yahoo will lose part of it’s power against Microsoft. That is my view on things. You still will have to pay as much for your ads guys.
David Norden
Phil Hughes
29. Jul, 2009
Competition is definitely a good thing. Also wipes a bit of the ‘Evil Empire’ stigma off of Microsoft
…now if only Apple would make a search engine ;o)
Ely
29. Jul, 2009
The problem with Google Slaps is mostly that in a lot of cases it slaps unjustly. It creates filtering methods to separate good content from junk, makes mistakes in it, and the slaps like it made it perfect. Playing God essentially.
With more competition relevance will be even more important. What’s the use to advertise cheaper on a search engine which nobody uses because it’s spammed? So we only will see improvements if Microhoo will be up to the task to deliver good relevant results to the searchers. And that’s a huge question.
Even if they’ll do, Google will have to compete on relevance, not ad prices, so that’s more Google Slaps, hopefully, more relevant than before, in which case they may be mot applicable to most of people on this thread.
Also, keep in mind, it’s us who in the end drive PPC prices up by bidding against each other.
Walter Daniels
29. Jul, 2009
I’ve been running a business, or studying advertising for micro business (per Paul Myers, <100 employees, or <$1M/yr sales), and am writing a primer on the subject. Most businesses *ignore* the customers needs. They are too focused “selling” or “marketing.” I’m not an expert on SEO, or PPC, but how many complainers are trying to see how close they can cut to cheating?
Google, as several have pointed out, has *no* obligation to an advertisers, except to present the ads as agreed. Their major obligation is, and as any search engine should be, is the searcher. To present the most relevant information, in the clearest manner. Ads are simply a way to pay for doing that. If they could pay for _their_ costs another way, they can. Like any business, if we forget who our customers are, and that they are our first responsibility, we will lose our profits and then our business.
Micro$oft, and Yahoo both forgot that, or they would have been more competitive with Google. M$ managed to create a monopoly market, in the beginning, and never learned to compete properly (service, but not in the farmyard sense). Yahoo had a good idea, and then started getting complacent. They thought that there were no alternatives, and allowed Google to implement a better idea. They thought the SE business was about making money, not serving the customer. So, they lost searchers and business.
If M$ and Yahoo haven’t learned their lessons, the merger will mean nothing. They will be “cheaper,” because they will offer fewer searchers, and poorly targeted views. If I have to choose 100 poorly targeted paid clicks at $1 each, or 10 on target at $10 each, I know which I want, and so should you.
I’ll finish with one last thought. Every business relies, at base, on their perception by past, present, and potential customers. The more you look like a “Black Hat,” no matter how “White Hat” you may be, you will be judged as a “BH” not “WH.” It takes a little more effort to avoid the “close to the line” risks, but it pays off eventually. Be perceived as being honest, as well as being honest in all your dealings. It’s the only real way to win in business.
Ellery
29. Jul, 2009
I think that Yahoo! and M$ may need some time to cooperate and familiar with each other for some time. So in short term what Ryan said may not apply but in the long term, it will.
It all depends on how good Y & M work together. Right?
Chuck Mullaney
29. Jul, 2009
This is very exciting!
So many opportunities can arise from this type of paradigm shift in the market; assuming it actually happens and they become a true competitor.
Thanks for the post Ryan!
Tammy
29. Jul, 2009
I think this is wonderful news. This has been one of my big stopping points when it comes to going anywhere with my own business.
I have heard so many stories about how people were making good money online until Google slapped thousands of their own customers.
I think that would be devastating if it happened to me, so I can just imagine the ones who have put a lot of work into a project only to start making a living and then get slapped by Google and lose everything.
It is one of my great fears.
Thanks so much for Microsoft and Yahoo!!!! No more fear!!!
This is just AWESOME
Bill
29. Jul, 2009
I agree, competition makes good players perform better. I do think microsoft and yahoo are coming to the dance late though, and innovation from other players (like youtube, facebook, twitter, etc.) will continue to segment the search market that Google has dominated and they will now be competing for. I think the more interesting thing to watch will come from the agreements and partnerships made in vertical markets… but, all in all this Microsoft/Yahoo announcement is good news.
Sam
29. Jul, 2009
Agree. Competition is healthy. Look forward to seeing how this one works out.
Angela Zechinato
29. Jul, 2009
We marketers need all the edge we can get…..I believe in competition and aside from making Google more humble it means more traffic opportunities and choices for all. I look forward to further developments. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft/Yahoo come up with as far as ppc.
Kevin DaSilva
29. Jul, 2009
This will be a Great thing for us (marketers), I agree, when it comes to PPC.
However, how do you think this will play out for those of us that are SEO’ers?
We all have Google mastered BUT if a big piece of the market goes to Yahoo/MSN then traffic will go down… AND THAT SUCKS!
Any thoughts on this?
Kindest regards,
Kevin DaSilva
Victor Rafael Rivarola
29. Jul, 2009
Do not be deceived, this is horrible news to all us marketters.
Yes, it is true that competition is good. and that Google NEEDS competition because they are misbehaving already.
Problem is Microsoft knows nothing about competition. It only knows about monopolistic cut-throat behvior.
Look at what happened with DR-DOS, Turbo Pascal, WordPerfect, OS/2, Ashon Tate, Netscape, and countless others.
Microsoft tactic is always this:
1. Embrace a competing technology, falsely claiming that “we do it because we care for our customers”.
2. Extend that technology with things that are incompatible with other makers’.
3. Extinguish the competition from other makers by having the entire market rely on Microsoft only products.
Microsoft is a convicted criminal. It has been tried and found guilty by anti trust courts in the USA, in Europe, and is under investigation in Japan. It feels no remorse, as can be shown by its open decision not to do as it was told by the courts of the European Union and made the conscious choice to pay the 1.6 million Euros rather than disclosing details of how to make an competing product.
Remember the browser wars of the late 1990′s, anyone? Microsoft was competing very hard with Netscape back then. It finally came up with a product that was not only better than Netscape’s, but also it bundled it with Windows thus accelerating into the “Extinguish” part: With nobody going to the trouble to download a browser if one was already loaded on your PC, NS was extinguished.
But then, remember the browser development halted in time until Firefox came along (literally, from the ashes of Netscape–Netscape’s code is the base for Firefox) and restarted the browser wars.
But it was only after a halt of almost one decade.
As marketers, even though this is good news in the SHORT term, it will bring us only bad news in the long run, if we play along.
I am not really up to date with the activities of that particular criminal. So some fine details of this post might not be the latest.
Johannes Stockburger
29. Jul, 2009
I find that it is always better to have 2 strong players in a field, tather than one dominating everything.
I like Google, and they became as big as they are by doing things right.
But having a serious competitor may help them to keep their mind focused on customer needs.
And there may be some room for improvement: I recently opened a faecbook account, and after one or 2 days I found a small list of people, who are actually my customers. And facebook, which belongs to google, said something like “we thing, you know these people. Wy not make them friends on facebook. ” I was kind of shocked, because it is not facebooks business to know, whether I know a person or not, as long as I do not tell them.
Teresa Blaes
29. Jul, 2009
Hey Ryan, while it is nice to see some movement in the addvertizing space, my first reaction is to say that you are basing a lot on one merger. There is a reason why google owns so much of the market share, and neither Microsoft, nor yahoo, nor any other surp will be giving google heart burn late at night, or causing them to sweat. Though you might be right in regards to ppc costs. I guess in that respect a little comp never hurt anyone.
Vic Johnson
29. Jul, 2009
Right on Ryan! And thanks for the valuable info. Look forward to seeing you next week. V.
Marty
29. Jul, 2009
It is so rare to hear people speaking about Microsoft in positive terms! Thanks for the heads up!
valentina
29. Jul, 2009
Hey Ryan!
Good take … I didn’t think about Google being such jerks with the Google Slaps etc. but definitely agree with the lower costs to advertise & just maybe higher commissions?
best………valentina
Sky
29. Jul, 2009
One of the emutable laws in marketing is that the first company to take the #1 spot will hold that spot. This being said….This IS good news for us all. The new combo may not outreach Google, but the competition WILL give us more opportunities to grow OUR businesses. I really don’t care if Google or Microsoft/Yahoo is # 1….I just want to make money for me and mine.
Sky
Salt Lake City
Ryan Isaacs
29. Jul, 2009
I think the merge is gonna be great!
Aaron
29. Jul, 2009
I just hope that Microsoft does a better job of this than they did with Vista. Seems like they haven’t done anything right for a long time.
Jesse Nano
29. Jul, 2009
I am really curios on how will this affect the PPC costs.
And more curios (like Ryan said) if Google will loosen the ropes abit
Rick
29. Jul, 2009
It should be interesting to see how it all works together. The rankings among the 3 are certainly not always close. Some sites I have rank on the first page of Google consistently, do ok on Bing and don’t even show up on Yahoo.
Of course there are sites that I rank well on Google and Yahoo and don’t show up on Bing. It’s a real pain in the rear sometimes.
I may have to brush up a little on Yahoo and Bing so I can try to optimize a little better for them. We shall see.
Thanks
Rick
NewMediaDoc
29. Jul, 2009
Well now! This is perfect – and I frankly can’t wait to see a more human side to Google again. Thanks for this good news!
Jason Ayers
29. Jul, 2009
Hi Ryan,
Great post …thanks for keeping us in the loop. This deal has been kicked around for a long time and should be a great deal for the marketing community as Bing integrates with Yahoo …we’ll see.
See you in Austin next week.
Jason R. Ayers
Justin
29. Jul, 2009
This is great news. It’s been a long time comming.
Yogi Zen Dude
29. Jul, 2009
Very Kooool…Thank You for the Heads Up !!!****** =)
Holding an Intent for the Best for Everyone !!!****** =)
Blessings of Bliss My Friend’s !!!****** =)
Serge Grenier
29. Jul, 2009
Those who think Microsoft will treat them better than Google are dreaming, IMHO.
Rallie Rallis
29. Jul, 2009
Get article. It will be interesting to see how Google will respond to this team up.