With Google being the current champ in the search engine kingdom, other companies face a huge mountain to climb if they want to level the playing field. Research firm comScore reported that in July, Google claimed a whopping 66 percent of the total search traffic within the United States. Trailing far behind were Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing search engine, with 17 and 11 percent, respectively. As the saying goes, “if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,” and that is what Yahoo and Bing have decided to do, in a way.
Rather than joining Google or being absorbed by them, Bing and Yahoo decided to join efforts in their quest for supremacy in the search engine market. Within the last couple months, Bing and Yahoo announced that they would become partners in order to consolidate their efforts to take up the number two spot in search engine market share and take direct aim at Google's top spot.
The merger is a welcome move for Yahoo, who has seen its market share drop over the last year. Meanwhile, Bing, which started in 2009, has seen its share steadily climb. While Yahoo brings plenty of search engine experience to the table, Bing can bring more of a fresh start to the partnership.
As of now, Bing is powering Yahoo's search results in English within the United States and Canada. Visitors to Yahoo's search will notice “Powered by Bing™” at the bottom of each page to officially signify the partnership between the two services.
In the next few weeks and months, other languages are expected to be added for more of an international flair. In addition to the standard search engine services, Bing and Yahoo will also combine their advertising services. The two are working on a complete shift over to Microsoft's adCenter, which is the company's advertising service that offers pay-per-click advertisements to those interested. They hope to complete the shift this fall, just in time for the holiday season. Bing and Yahoo will split advertising revenue once everything is complete.
Although the partnership is still in its infancy, it will likely cause the search engine race to heat up. By combining efforts, Bing and Yahoo have created a formidable team to take on Google. It should be interesting to see how search engine technologies develop as competition increases, and what type of response Google will have to defeat the two-headed monster on its tail.
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