The New Partnership between Google and Yahoo and The Potential impact on SEO

Google and Yahoo are now teammates. Yahoo has entered a revenue sharing deal with Google, which will provide ads to Yahoo and pay them for an unannounced percentage of ad revenue. Ultimately, AdWords marketers may potentially reach more eyeballs. Here are more details about this non-exclusive partnership between the two search giants and what it will mean to the SEO community.

Partnership Provisions

The deal began on October 1, 2015 and will continue through the end of 2018. Prior to the agreement, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing were exclusive partners until renegotiation in March created an opportunity for Yahoo to explore partnerships with other search ad platforms. The companies have not yet disclosed to the public all the provisions required by the Department of Justice. A similar deal between the two search companies was abandoned in 2008 when the DOJ had antitrust concerns.

Since the deal is non-exclusive, Yahoo is allowed to work with Microsoft Bing, other partners or use its own technology to deliver search ads. Yahoo is currently developing its own technology for mobile search. Google will be allowed to terminate the deal under certain conditions that have not yet been disclosed. Essentially, Yahoo now has the option to display Google’s search ads and search results for its site and affiliate sites on both desktop and mobile devices.

Yahoo’s 8-K statement filed with the Securities Exchange Commission further explains details of the plan. The percentage of gross revenue that Google will pay Yahoo will vary, depending on the countries where search ads are displayed. Meanwhile, Yahoo will pay fees to Google for search queries that involve images or search results based on web algorithms.

SEO Impact

Google still dominates the search engine industry with 66 percent market share, according to SearchEngineLand columnist Jasyon DeMers. Bing maintains a 20 percent share while Yahoo garners 13 percent. His view of the new partnership is that there is increasingly little difference between the search results generated by Google, Yahoo and Bing, which now has its own knowledge graph. He believes we’re moving into an era in which SEO will no longer be synonymous with Google guidelines. That means you won’t have to worry much about changing your on-site optimization and off-site relationship-building strategies.

Regardless of how search engines interact with each other, the most consistent SEO concepts revolve around proper use of keywords, informative content and relevant links. DeMers believes that it’s valuable to pay attention to how your sites rank in various search engines, not just Google. As the top search engines begin to mirror each other more and more, algorithms will become more sophisticated while you will mostly need to check one set of best practices across various search rankings.

Each major search engine shares a common vision, which is to provide its users with the fastest, most relevant search results. Search ads are the primary way they each stay in business. It’s important to keep in mind that ads complement content, but they should each be crafted appropriately. While ad messages can be whatever you want, content usually needs to have an authoritative and informative edge in order to achieve high search rankings. At least that’s the direction algorithmic updates are moving.

Improving Your SEO

You can learn more about the latest developments in the SEO world by contacting SimpleMachine, which monitors web trends and provides web design and marketing services. Not only can this Arkansas-based web company give you insight on how to drive more traffic to your site, their team of experts can do the work for you so that you can focus on your business priorities.