Microsoft, Yahoo Reach 10-Year Search Engine Deal

Microsoft has finally acquired long-time search engine rival Yahoo Inc in a 10 year search engine partnership.

The deal, which has been in the works on-and-off for over a year has been finalized and made public earlier today. (Source: computerworld.com)

The announcement initially sent Yahoo stock down about 8 percent, while Microsoft stock saw a brief jump, opening at just a little over $23 a share. (Source: bizjournals.com)

Revenue Shared by Search Technologies

The deal was almost thrown off the rails when Yahoo demanded a significant payment up front, but now company will instead receive a share of the revenue generated by the agreement. (Source: bizjournals.com)

Yahoo agreed to use Microsoft's Bing search engine on its sites, while Microsoft will use Yahoo's search technology. Yahoo will sell ads on both sites and the two companies will share revenue from traffic generated on Yahoo sites.

Yahoo expects the partnership will save $275M it would have previously invested in search technology, boosting its annual profit by $500M. (Source:  bizjournals.com)

Hunting for a Better Search Engine

In other Bing-related news, Microsoft is hoping to improve the performance of its new search engine by having the public play a little game called "Page Hunt," where users are awarded points based on how close they come to correctly guessing the keywords attached to a website. (Source: sci-tech-today.com)

You can find out more about Page Hunt by clicking here.