Bing and Yahoo and SEO: there’s no rush

Posted by Josh on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009.

Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced a complex agreement in which Bing will provide natural and paid search results to Yahoo! properties, and Microsoft will have access to Yahoo!’s technology. Yahoo! will provide the salesforce for premium search advertisers. Self-service paid search (this is regular old PPC through adCenter and Yahoo Sponsored Search) will be handled via adCenter.

What does this mean for our clients? Right now, not much. The integration will take many months to several years. First they need to obtain regulatory approval, and Yahoo! estimates that it could take up to an additional 24 months for full integration.

For advertisers: There is no immediate impact. At some point, all Yahoo Sponsored Search advertising will be shifted over to Microsoft adCenter.

For natural search / SEO: Microsoft’s Bing technology will eventually power Yahoo! search results, but it doesn’t yet, and won’t for months to years. Furthermore, we still maintain our consistent position that you don’t chase algorithms, you apply SEO best practices. If anything, algorithms continue to get more and more sophisticated and difficult to analyze, so the best practices approach is still the best way to pursue high rankings while minimizing risks of potential penalties.

If you have additional questions about how this may affect your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us.