Search Alliance Suffers Setback in Strive for Synergy

Whilst Britain gears up for one union, the royal wedding between Kate Middleton and Prince William next Friday, there is another unification that already appears to be hitting turbulent times despite only recently reaching the altar.

In July 2009, we at Click Consult reported on the newly announced paid search deal between two key players in search advertising. However, it has now been revealed that Yahoo and MSN’s much feted Search Alliance; the all conquering David of the Death Star to Google’s Goliath in the PPC arena; has suffered another major setback after revealing that initial results of the alliance were below expectation.

Carol Bartz, Chief Executive of Yahoo!, who was given the task two years ago of turning around the diminishing fortunes of Yahoo! Search Marketing (Y!SM), announced on Wednesday that the advertising partnership with MSN was having a strategy review, citing limitations with available technology to provide sufficient growth in advertising revenue. There will now be a delay before the planned roll out, despite measures already being undertaken to integrate the platforms on an internal level.

The theory behind the Alliance was a good one. As we predicted, a merger between Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Ad Center would take place, sharing resources and technology to boost their market share in an almost monopolised PPC market containing the AdWords platform from Google, whose similarities with Skynet are becoming ever more apparent. However, just as agencies are prepared with accounts successfully mirrored onto Ad Center in preparation for the switchover, we now wait.

Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise? Some see this as the last roll of the dice and it has been evident from recent Hitwise reports that improvements in market share for both Yahoo! and Bing are afoot. Take your time to get this one right and in years to come you will reap the benefits of a lasting search legacy.