In case you hadn’t heard the word, Microsoft and Yahoo have signed a partnership agreement that will merge the #2 and #3 search engines effectively into one more powerful search engine with a bit more influence on the search environment. Google, still maintaining the dominant #1 position with over 64% share of the search market will now have to deal with a joint engine (powered by Bing search) that garners around 30%. Is this a game changer to the search engine marketer? Absolutely the answer is yes. 30% share of over 15 billion search queries in the US is a significant volume, and consolidating that under one search engine will require some modifications from search marketers (and online marketers in general). This will impact both SEO and PPC planning, as I will explain.

SEO Impact of Bing and Yahoo Merger

In the world of three major engine, search marketers have had to try to navigate and understand the ranking algorithms of three engines that together deliver 95% of all search engine traffic. Each of the three engines have different core factors that have an impact on rankings, and each of the engines have a different timeframe for making updates and changes. With Yahoo search results soon to be powered by Bing, one thing that will be immediately impacted (either positively or negatively) is the volume of natural search traffic referrals coming in. For SEO folks who had managed to get some positive footing in Yahoo but not much with Bing, there may be a decline in that traffic once the merger is official. For those that had made good gains with Bing but not much with Yahoo, there may be an improvement in natural search traffic. Of course, if a site had managed to perform well in both engines, there may not be any impact.

Yet another option is that Bing rolls out an entirely new ranking algorithm that shakes everything up and leaves SEOs trying to figure out what they need to do to get back on top. Whatever the case may be, the pending merger will likely result in a bit of new discovery for SEO pros as we get used to the new landscape that has 2 major engines rather than one major and two minor.

Paid Search Impact of Bing and Yahoo Merger

For anyone that has spent any time in PPC management on Yahoo and Bing, you know that there are some very key differences between the two. For starters, there seems to be a lot more advertiser saturation with Yahoo, at least as far as it relates to pharmaceutical search marketing. In Bing, we have seen significantly lower volumes, spend and higher click through rate…all signs that it is not a heavily saturated advertiser market yet. Yahoo, on the other hand has consistently showed volume and performance comparable (in a much smaller scale) to what we see from Google. Google and Yahoo are advertising channels that have been around since the beginning of PPC, essentially, while Bing (aka Microsoft AdCenter) is a relatively new channel.

With Yahoo search now ready to be powered by Bing, all PPC campaigns will be running through AdCenter. This means that all the advertisers that had not embraced Bing as the third paid search channel will now be forced to leverage AdCenter if they want to continue running their Yahoo campaigns. This is good news for Microsoft, but likely bad news for pharma PPC campaigns that will see growing cost per click with declining coverage. In the end, it could require MORE money to run PPC campaigns than previously budgeted for, something that folks may not be considering. I know through conversations with other media agencies that will remain nameless that they had not yet engaged Bing as an media channel.They were “waiting to see how it panned out”. Well, now we know how it will pan out and folks that aren’t engaged will find themselves forced into the fold. The big loss for those people is that they will have no built up history and, thus, no quality score in the Bing advertising network. Meanwhile, anyone already engaged in Bing will have some established history and, providing they already had a decent quality score, will have some advantages for the near term.

When will the Microhoo Merger Happen?

According to communications with both Yahoo and Bing reps, this merger will begin somewhere toward the end of the summer with the goal of launching everything before the 2010 holiday season. So, sometime in early to mid Q4 we should see the changes happening and things start shifting. I predict that many will be happy with the merger, and many more will be unhappy. Like it or not, it will be happening and it is the job of search marketers to adapt and strategize based on the new landscape. If you aren’t hearing your search marketing agencies talking about this as a major factor, encourage them to do so and start planning.

Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of Intouch Solutions.