Microsoft, Yahoo to enter web search deal to face Google

BEIJING, July 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are about to announce a search and online advertising deal, according to sources quoted by media Wednesday.

About 15 months after Microsoft's unsuccessful bid to buy Yahoo, the two companies successfully made a deal that Yahoo will have Microsoft's search technology used on its websites.

In this deal, Yahoo will completely give up its own efforts in web search to challenge Google, and instead rely on Microsoft's Bing search engine. Ads placed next to Yahoo's search results would be served up not by Yahoo's own ad platform, but by a Microsoft technology called AdCenter.

The two companies will split the revenue generated from the ads.

The partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo would help the two companies to compete with the dominant Google in the search market.

In a most recent report, Yahoo's search engine ranks No. 2 with a worldwide market share of 8 percent, while Google holds 67 percent of the global share. In the United States, Google's share is 65 percent compared to about 20 percent for Yahoo.