Yahoo has had a weird few years. Many of us didn’t even know they were still around. But under Marissa Mayer’s leadership, the company has turned around and put out some really great apps for Android. Of course, the help of former Googler Jean-Baptiste Queru definitely helped. When it comes to Yahoo search, it’s not the best search engine out there, to be honest. Often times I only use it when I’m somewhere where Google is blocked. However, that is about to change, as Yahoo and Google have struck a 3-year deal for Google to power search results from Yahoo. And what’s surprising here is that this is in addition to their deal with Microsoft. Which means that this might be a really powerful search engine. Yahoo broke their news in their Q3 earnings report, stating:
“In October, the Company reached an agreement with Google that provides Yahoo with additional flexibility to choose among suppliers of search results and ads. Google’s offerings complement the search services provided by Microsoft, which remains a strong partner, as well as Yahoo’s own search technologies and ad products.”
Yahoo mentioned that “Microsoft remains a strong partner” in their press release, so we have two competitors powering search for Yahoo. Of course, Yahoo is also powering their own search results with their own search technology and ad products. So Yahoo ads aren’t going away. It’s no secret that Yahoo has been looking to get out of the agreement they entered in with Microsoft back in 2009. As it seems the two parties aren’t too happy with the results of that partnership. The good thing is, it should be coming to an end soon. In fact, Yahoo made amendments to that deal so that this Google deal could happen. In the document released yesterday, they also mentioned that Yahoo can decide which search queries go through Google and is a non-exclusive agreement. There is also no minimum number of queries that they need to send over to Google. So this sounds like a great deal for Yahoo. It’s a three-year deal, which means it’ll be ending in 2018, and it’ll be interesting to see if the two renew the deal after those three years are up.
Currently, Yahoo doesn’t have a huge market share in terms of search results. As they are currently sitting at the third spot with a 12.7% share. That’s behind both Google and Microsoft, who they have deals with. Yahoo does have the power and technology to be their own search engine. But that likely won’t ever happen.