Microsoft and Yahoo! have received approval from both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission for their search deal announced last summer, Search Engine Watch has reported.
Yahoo! will begin to rebrand its search facility under the Bing banner, and its paid search platform will become adCenter. However, Yahoo! ad reps will be responsible for implementing the deal across its sales partners.
Current timescales suggest that both companies want to complete the transition by the summer, but this could slip if its implementation puts in jeopardy revenues for this traditionally busy period.
Yahoo! also plans to continue looking at innovations in the way it presents the Bing results.
SEW’s expert industry watcher Nathania Johnson reports that search marketing companies are eager to start seeing the benefits of bringing the two powerhouses together. “I have talked to so many SEMs who say that their ROI on Bing is awesome, now they just want more traffic to maximize the conversions,” she reported on the SEW blog.