So let me see if I got this right… Microsoft threw $44.6 billion dollars at Yahoo in an attempt to purchase their competitor outright today. Sure, there was speculation that something like this was going to happen, but a large percentage of analysts and online marketers were believing that this was just rumor. But, that is indeed what happened today. Yahoo hasn’t publicly commented on this fat wad of cash being thrown at them or what they’re gonna do about it.

Don’t get me wrong, Yahoo has been struggling a bit since their 2007 year end numbers went public, and subsequently their stock keeps taking a tumble as a fall out from that. Right now, 1,000 jobs at Yahoo are on the chopping block. A fat boost of cash and the backing of Microsoft might be good for the company itself on it’s nested value for traders and shareholders, however, the big questions are yet to be answered. What will this do to the quality of their search? What will this do to the SEO industry? Are we really ready for just 2 search Goliath’s battling it out for our business?

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain

The average internet user won’t be any wiser to any sort of technological merge with Microsoft’s technology and search.. which is what I predict will happen here. The two search engines could become symbiotic to a certain degree to produce the search engine result pages working off of each others algorithms and indexes. As much as I loathe Microsoft, I do have to applaud them on finally getting their search in healthy enough shape to really care about their product. But they knew they were late in the game, in this case several years late, as they watched Google dominate and Yahoo keep a lead over Microsoft every quarter for market share.

Yahoo is a competitor to Google for a few key reasons; they do have a strong search product, they have a strong ad serving platform, and they have a enormous share of faithful users to their portal and subsequent services. Microsoft only has a passable search product, a fledgling (but promising) ad serving platform and the forceful integration of Windows users being pushed onto their portal first time they open Internet EXPLODER Explorer. Combining all of this could give a unified venture like this a very plausible chance at striking hard at Google.

Only the internet savvy and the marketers will really notice any shift in quality. Combining their ad serving platforms is probably what this is all about; this might be their secret weapon to cash in with as little effort and time possible to try and close the gap with the big G. It doesn’t take a genius to acknowledge that the revenues from contextual ads is what makes Google’s world go round. With that in mind, this realization is fact and not fiction; Microsoft NEVER really lets any companies they acquire run independent. Don’t even think for a second that Yahoo is just going to get a free sack of cash and not have to conform to the “Bank of Redmond”. There will be an influence on either both or just Yahoo’s ad serving product. Mark my words.

Yea, But What About Us SEO’s?

We’ll know when something is happening within hours of it happening. This might be the kick in the pants we’ve all been waiting for to liven up our jobs again! I like that prospect of it, but I’m sincerely hoping that they produce something that will make Google sweat. I say start the nastiest phase of the search engine wars!

Being optimistic (which is rare for me LOL), I sincerely believe that we will have more work, have new challenges if these 2 consolidate into one search entity. On the flip side of things, this could be the largest blunder that MS and Y! will ever make and it will be cataclysmic to their search and portals. But like all strange relationships.. we just have to wait and see what happens if they go forward together.

Hopefully by Monday or Tuesday, we’ll know what Yahoo’s next move will be. The ball is in their court now…