Google announced yesterday that it was pulling out of the agreement with Yahoo which would have allowed them to display Google Adwords listings on Yahoo search results in the US. The announcement comes in the face of a potentially lengthy and costly legal battles with competition regulators which Google has decided would “distract the from their core mission”.
In Yahoo’s response via email to it partners they reassured PPC advertisers that, whilst they were disappointed by the announcement, it would not prevent them becoming an “ever-stronger player in online advertising”. and reaffirm their strength in certain sectors by quoted their positioning across selected news verticals. A clear attempt to say “don’t give up on us yet!”
In a further twist, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang has come out and reverted on his original defiance on a sell out to Microsoft by claiming that he was open minded about a potential deal with Microsoft having been bitterly opposed to such a deal when originally proposed. Its funny how he has changed his mind immediately prior to the Google announcement!
So its back to square one in the search engine battle for supremacy with no deals on the table and everyone working independently. But for how long? Yang’s announcement is bound to start the Microsoft-yahoo rumour mill off again and it is probably more likely to go ahead after yesterday but who knows? I’m sure there will be more twists in the tail before the saga ends.
I think it’s a little bit late Mr Yang.