Bing will soon be powering Yahoo! search results, leaving advertisers with just two search networks from which to drive traffic. The European Union and the U.S. Department of Justice, by eliminating one of the Internet’s biggest search competitors, have ignored the costs this decision will impose on businesses as they continue to acquire new customers online.
On one hand, I suppose this is good news for search optimizers because now we have only two search engines for which to optimize. While the vast majority of B2B marketers use Google, driving more advertisers into fewer networks increases the price of traffic acquisition. Bidding wars over finite inventory were a complaint in the early years of paid search. I suspect we’ll hear howling soon.
It’s consumers and businesses, small business especially, who really lose. Consumers lose a unique Yahoo! search brand and point of view and the cost to market online can only increase over time.
The days of 10-cent clicks are long gone. To compete effectively online requires not only the internal fortitude to embrace the new, but also an understanding of the underpinnings of the Internet.
Links = Relationships
The rise of social media underscores the importance of developing relationships online. It’s no surprise that Google and Yahoo! have started indexing content from Facebook and Twitter. Those links to and from followers, bloggers and websites represent millions of conversations. I don’t think people will stop using search engines any time soon, but I do believe that with the Microhoo deal, we’ll see search market share decline and with it profits. When you take away choice, consumers can be fickle.
People, through their desire for connection, have provided an avenue for businesses to reach out like never before. Will the day come when companies will reach out to online communities directly and bypass the search engines?
We may have come full circle in our sales and marketing efforts. Every business is now a door-to-door salesman: engaging prospects, building rapport and following up.
Is your website up to the challenge?
Source: SEO Theory
UPDATE: Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, states at SMX West that Microsoft does *not* now intend to “kill off” Yahoo! Search – he further stated that within the deal agreement, Yahoo! may increase their search share via a wide number of initiatives.
Thanks to Chris Smith for the counter argument.
