Bing and Yahoo to Merge - My thoughts

My thoughts on the new Search Engine Service from Bing/Yahoo

I recently reported on this in my site's news section to read that post, please go here

We all know that competition is good in any market and I think that if Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo can create a real rival to Google then it will be good for the state of Internet. It's not that I am anti-Google, I the contrary I like it. I use many Google services, not just the search engine, but also Spreadsheets that I need to keep at a centralised location, as well as other services like the GoogleMail and Blogger.

Another point that I would like to make, that unlike many other industries, where one major player is dominant (i.e. a monopoly) Google does not seem to take its customers for granted. They have realised that people can quickly move from one Search Engine to another and that they must continue to offer more and more services to make sure they remain on top.

I have to say that I think this could be good for the industry as a little competition never hurt anyone and that it could really could improve. Knowing Google though, they will probably already making plans to make sure they remain on top and are probably relishing the challenge this new rival offers.

How this will affect the Search Engine Industry and those who work in it, only time will tell. I work within the SEO industry and at the moment, nearly all the focus of our work points towards Google and not either Yahoo or Bing, this will now, no doubt change.

I do add one note of caution to those who want MS to succeed against Google. Remember that when Microsoft obtain market dominance (like they did in the browser wars of 90's or the home PC software market) competition can suffer - something that no one would like to see in the world of the Internet, least of all me.