I had to laugh when I read the news on the BBC site this morning that Yahoo and Google have teamed up in an advertising trial. For two weeks, Google will serve 3% of Yahoo’s ads. The article doesn’t mention which ads – I’m presuming pay-per-click ads on search results.
The move is clearly intended to fend off Microsoft who have given Yahoo a time limit to accept their offer. This deal comes the day after Yahoo announced they were purchasing IndexTools, a web analytics and PPC bid management vendor I am very familiar with, having used them for five years.
Yahoo’s share price was up 7% on the Google announcement, making life that little bit harder for Microsoft. Personally, I think a merger would be a disaster. For years, both companies have been hammering away trying to compete with Google but have never caught up because of mis-directed effort. Bringing the two together, as far as I can see, would only cause upheaval and disruption for advertisers and publishers. The end result would probably be another misguided effort that doesn’t come close to tempting advertisers away from Google.
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