| Yesterday, Yahoo announced that it plans to acquire Overture in a stock and cash deal worth US$1.6 billion. The deal required regulatory and shareholder approval but could be completed by the fourth quarter, the companies said.
This deal reshapes the search engines market. Yahoo is now clearly set up as a rival to Google and the relationship between MSN and Overture is likely to end with this deal.
MSN is Overture's biggest partner, delivering as much as one-third of Overture's revenue this year. Some analysts say that it is only a matter of time before MSN looks for alternatives, including replacing Overture with Google's paid listings on its web sites.
Microsoft might also respond by bidding for a second-tier search company such as FindWhat.com, LookSmart or AskJeeves. LookSmart's stock price rose nearly 25 percent yesterday.
Yahoo already owns the paid inclusion search service Inktomi, and Overture recently acquired two other search engines, AltaVista and FAST Search & Transfer. For Yahoo, the acquisition means that it now gains total control of its search services, from algorithmic to paid search to paid inclusion.
As a result, Yahoo is likely to drop Google as its provider for the normal search results in the near future.
For you, this deal might provoke changes in your search engine optimization strategy. Now that Yahoo becomes more important, you should consider optimizing your web pages not only for Google but for Inktomi, AllTheWeb and AltaVista as well.
No one knows which of the three search engines Yahoo will use (maybe all three at once?) but higher rankings on them can only bring more traffic to your site. Optimizing your web pages for Inktomi, AllTheWeb and AltaVista means that your web pages will be well prepared if Google loses market share in the nearer future.
You can read the official Yahoo press release here.
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