ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Yahoo, Google primed for search war:
"Yahoo on Wednesday said it will drop search partner Google during the first quarter of 2004 in favor of its own technology, opening a new phase in the battle for Web search dominance.
The announcement from Yahoo CEO Terry Semel marks the first time the company has publicly disclosed a specific timeline for replacing Google, a move that has been widely expected since Yahoo announced plans to acquire search provider Inktomi for $235 million in December 2002. Inktomi has developed so-called algorithmic search technology similar to Google's that indexes Web pages and ranks them based on search terms.
Google currently processes approximately 80 percent of all search requests on the Web through distribution deals with Yahoo, Time Warner's America Online and Ask Jeeves, according to market share data compiled by research firm Comscore Media Metrix. When Yahoo ends its deal with Google, that share is expected to drop to about 54 percent. Yahoo's reach, meanwhile, could jump to 42 percent, based on its own search traffic and a deal that provides Inktomi results to Microsoft's MSN Web portal.
"This will mean virtually nothing to Google" from a business perspective, Sullivan said. "I don't know how much money they were making, but I'd be surprised if it was in the tens of millions. The real money in search is in ads, but Yahoo never carried Google's ads...What you really want to understand is the reach of their ad networks. That's not changing."
... Yahoo has expanded its deal to offer Overture's paid search results to MSN's sites throughout Europe and Asia, adding to an existing deal throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.
But the boost from the MSN deal could be short-lived, Sullivan said.
"By the end of 2004, MSN will get their act together," he said. "Then the worry for Yahoo is that MSN will prove to be a temporary boost for them."
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posted by Jen @ 6:33 AM
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