Will Bing and Yahoo! Merger Change Search?

Last week the US Department of Justice and European Commission sanctioned Yahoo!’s and Microsoft’s merger which will see the two search platforms combine to take on Google

Google’s position as the market share leader in search is unquestionable – you only have to look at the statistics (Google have over 65% of the market searches). So can this merger provide sufficient competition to something that is now an accepted verb in our language and what does it mean for advertisers?

Creating Two Quality Search Engines

There does seem to be quite a bit of confusion about how things will change but the clearest point is that Yahoo! will incorporate Microsoft’s Bing searches into their results whilst Yahoo! will be charged with delivering better sales and richer content.

They anticipate that the changeover will take full effect in late 2010 in the US and next year in Europe. The hope is that the merger will improve the quality of services and performance of not only Yahoo! and Bing but also Google.

Another benefit will improve the management of advertising with Microsoft’s adCentre the sole platform to deal with accounts.

Additionally, a greater wealth of results that are more relevant will be generated to help provide a more personalised service. This can be measured by Twitter’s inauguration into Yahoo! search results that began this week.

Early Confusion Fuels Concerns of Poor Organisation

Yet for all the benefits, an early and cumbersome structure is showing few signs of organisation which could ultimately drive away advertisers and users keen for a simplistic experience.

There is also a sentiment that combining two ailing search engines won’t all of a sudden create a good one.

The Jury Is Out but Only Time Will Tell

The question remains though - will they be able to provide a better service and challenge Google in the process? Well, they will have a greater market share - circa 30% in the US where we usually see trends emerge - and combined funds should allow them to focus their combined expertise to create a better search experience for advertisers and users alike. However, despite the furore of excitement these changes are a long way off.