Earlier this year the halfway point of Yahoo & Microsoft’s deal was reached. The deal had Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) providing the bulk of the results for Yahoo’s search’s while Yahoo handled a larger portion of the revenue deals. While it wasn’t without conflict, the partnership has helped take the combined company searches from 28% of the US market to 32.6% (of desktop searches). According to the original ten year deal, much of the specifics were up for renegotiation at the half way point.
The two companies were supposed to have finalized any changes last month, but they requested an extension so they could negotiate further. The companies have come to a new agreement and signed all the proper paperwork to continue the arrangement for the remaining five years.
Some key updates include allowing Yahoo to make more customizations on how the search results are displayed on their properties. This is especially important for mobile search results since mobile has quickly become so popular. Yahoo will also be able to resume handling their own Gemini ads and Microsoft will regain exclusive control of selling their own ads on Bing.
Despite rumors of significant conflict between the two companies, it seems they have worked together to come up with reasonable updates to their agreement that will have them partnered for the remaining five years. After that, however, it will be interesting to see if the deal continues.
Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, said of the updated agreement, “Our global partnership with Yahoo has benefited our shared customers over the past five years and I look forward to building on what we’ve already accomplished together. Our partnership with Yahoo is one example of the diverse partnerships we’ll continue to cultivate in order to have the greatest impact for our customers.”
