It was August of 2010 that Yahoo officially moved onto the Bing platform for SERPs and it seems like the honeymoon may be over. The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo is looking to move out of their deal with Bing. Unfortunately for Yahoo they seem to be tied into their current deal till 2015. The Wall Street Journal noted:
Yahoo is unlikely to get out of its contract with Microsoft until at least mid-2015, the midway point of the 10-year agreement, when either party can potentially opt out, said a person familiar with the contract.
There is another clause in the deal that allows Yahoo to sever it if the revenue per search falls below a certain level, but the revenue per search has been rising and doesn’t appear likely to fall below that level, this person said.
Another thing that might hold Yahoo back is that they effectively gave up their Search Engine tools and technology. During the “merger” with Bing they handed over their Search Engine Technology as part of the deal. Yahoo had also let go a large portion of their Search Engine development staff. However, all of this did not stop Yahoo from announcing on the May 8th that they were rolling out new tools and upgrades to their system. It should be noted that many of these tools and upgrades are being rolled out with Bing. Yahoo’s senior vice president of search Laurie Mann, also feels that Yahoo still has a competitive place in the search engine Market.
Yahoo currently has about 12% of the total search engine market share and they intend to grow that share. Marissa Mayer accepted the role of CEO of Yahoo in 2012. She is a former member of Google and well versed in the Search Engine Market. Mayer will be the driving force in Yahoo’s bid for a larger share of the market. The jury is still out on this move from Yahoo. Although they have not lost much ground in the market since they paried with Bing, neither have made significant gains. Google still makes up about 67% of the market share with Bing at roughly 17%. Together, Yahoo and Bing still hover around 30% of the market share which is not much better prior to the “merger” of the two platforms.