Microsoft to power Yahoo search

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo has completed the migration of its web and mobile search functions to Microsoft's Bing search engine as the two companies hope that their combined market power may prove a more significant threat to the dominance of Google.

The integration comes more than a year after Yahoo and Microsoft announced their 10-year search deal under which Microsoft will power Yahoo's search site, while Yahoo manages sales for both companies' premium search advertisers.

"This is a great milestone for Bing and Yahoo and our customers, and we are happy to report the transition has gone smoothly and we feel great about the progress our search alliance has been making over the summer," wrote Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's online services division, in a blog post.

According to recently published data, Yahoo and Microsoft have a combined 28 per cent share of the US search market, while Google has a roughly 66 per cent share.

Yahoo expects the deal to save it the high cost of developing its own cutting edge search capability, while combining the two companies' customers is expected to entice advertisers to pay more for paid search ads. IANS