Yahoo announced on Thursday that it has renewed its 10-year search deal with Microsoft. The deal seems to be in favor of the search giant, as the software giant allowed Yahoo to have control in almost half of its search results.
Microsoft has controlled how Bing ads show on the search results of the Yahoo websites. Now, Yahoo can get to choose which Bing ads will display in the search results. But as far as revenue sharing is concerned, both agreed not to change the setup - Microsoft will pay Yahoo 90 percent of the Bing ad revenue generated from Yahoo websites, according to Reuters.
The deal is a big takeaway for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer who wanted Yahoo to reclaim its dominance in web search which was snatched by Google. She has been working closely with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who is willing to keep the business, the New York Times reported. The original deal was with former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
"Over the past few months, Satya and I have worked closely together to establish a revised search agreement that allows us to enhance our user experience and innovate more in our search business," wrote Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a press release. "This renewed agreement opens up significant opportunities in our partnership that I'm very excited to explore."
Sources close to Yahoo told Business Insider that the new deal would boost Yahoo's revenues, estimating that the company could earn $1 billion annually if ever it decides to outsource its search traffic to its main competition Google. Well, involving Google in the picture is not an option for Mayer.
The changes are expected to begin this summer and both companies are preparing for the sales force transition.
Both Yahoo and Microsoft refused to provide more details on the agreement.
