February 18, 2010
By the ZippyCart Ecommerce Software Content Team
The pending Microsoft Bing and Yahoo search deal has been in the works for quite some time, but today the partnership was given a green light from the US Department of Justice and the European Commission. As an ecommerce merchant, you might wonder if you are ready for the change, or if you should really even bother preparing for the changes to come. Most ecommerce sites focus on Google because it has consistently owned about 65% of the search market, which weighs in beyond any one search engine including Bing or Yahoo. However, now that this merger is taking place, the combined search platform of Bing and Yahoo will account for about 28% of total searches, which makes them a more worthy competitor to go head to head with Google. When everything is complete with the partnership, Yahoo search results will now mirror that of Bing because they will share they same algorithm. The overall look and feel of both sites will remain in their current states, but the search results generated will most likely be uniform across the two sites. This is, without a doubt, one of the biggest events in the Internet industry for 2010, and is likely to change the competitive landscape when it comes to search results.
Currently an ecommerce site, or any site looking to tackle SEO, typically neglects Bing and Yahoo because they do not equal the return on investment gained by focusing on Google. This trend is changing in 2010, with online businesses giving Bing and Yahoo more attention, so they can benefit during the Q4 shopping season. Most consumers are not really aware of the impending change via this partnership, nor will they notice a significant difference in how their preferred search engine looks and feels. The important thing to take away as an ecommerce merchant is that it is now a two engine search world, in which Google and Bing/Yahoo (Binghoo) cannot be avoided if you are serious about your SEO strategy. Because this partnership has received “unrestricted” clearance, the framework has now been laid for this global shift in how we search.
Amy is the co-founder of ZippyCart. She went to school for film in Cleveland, Ohio and ended up working in the field of viral video marketing, which eventually led her to her real profession: SEO. When she's not writing for ZippyCart, she can be found out and about Seattle, WA.
