After three years of waiting for the technology to make its way across the Pond, UK, Irish and French Yahoo users are finally due to see the results of the Yahoo and Microsoft AdCenter deal this week.
The initial and most noticeable of the changes will see ads from Microsoft’s AdCenter form part of Yahoo search results, although it goes without saying that there is a lot more to the merger than this one element.
In The Beginning
The alliance between the two companies has been in operation since 2009 and is already in force in the USA and Canada.
The transition is expected to begin on 18 April and, according to sources will be completed by the end of the month. Microsoft suggest that during the transition, users should remain on their existing forum but after this point they will need to move over to AdCenter because Yahoo will remain in a read only status.
Discussing the expected changes over the coming weeks, Microsoft advised users on their official blog “As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and impressions in that account begin to increase, you’ll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. It is thus important to continue managing your campaigns across both platforms throughout this transition phase, in order to avoid missing out on any potential clicks.”
What it Means…
When the search alliance was first mooted in July 2009, the opportunity to combine Bing and Yahoo search audiences on a single global platform was welcomed as an opportunity to take some of the control away from Google who were at the time and continue to monopolise search engine activity.
Although the success of the move remains to be seen, there are heartening figures from the United States where according to ComScore figues, Microsoft and Yahoo together deliver 6 billion monthly searches and have a 30% search share, combined.
However the changes and the results might play out, it is almost certain that the eyes of the technology world as well as rivals Google will be watching Yahoo most closely over the coming months.
