Renew it, actually. Microsoft and Yahoo signed their search deal in 2009, which saw the Bing become the search provider for Yahoo services. The partnership has seen ups and downs, though.
There was even recent speculation that Yahoo might end the deal.
However, both companies have announced a continuation — albeit with some slight changes and some new commitments. The primary change is that Yahoo will now have greater flexibility to enhance the search experience on any platform, mobile or desktop.
The company will, however, continue to serve Bing ads and search results for the majority of its desktop search traffic, which still is quite substantial.
Marissa Meyer, the Yahoo CEO, shared some thoughts on this new development:
“Over the past few months, Satya and I have worked closely together to establish a revised search agreement that allows us to enhance our user experience and innovate more in our search business.”
Another important revision is that the advertising deal between these two long-term partners would be revamped by making Microsoft in charge of ads delivered by the Bing Ad platform, while Yahoo will handle the Gemini Ads affairs.
The announcement did not go into details of the financial value of this renewed deal, but both companies have confirmed that the existing revenue sharing agreement will continue.
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I have been using Bing lately and I like it more than Google Search. Google Search isn’t as good as it once was. Multiple results from Facebook and Amazon on the first page. Even Duck Duck Go yields better search results. I haven’t tested Yahoo Search but assume it’s the same as Bing.