Bing is now fully fueling Yahoo search results in the U.S. and Canada, Yahoo and Microsoft said on Tuesday.
The announcement marks one of the first major milestones since the two companies signed a 10-year deal for Microsoft to power Yahoo search and for Yahoo to use Microsoft’s AdCenter advertising platform. Authorities in the U.S. and Europe approved the deal in February and the companies have said they expect to take about two years to fully implement the agreement.
So far, Bing is only powering results in English in the U.S. and Canada, with other languages to follow “in the weeks and months to come,” wrote Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, in a blog post.
Last week, Yahoo said it would begin transitioning to Bing on the back end for search, noting that search results pages would display the line “Powered by Bing” at the bottom for searches using Microsoft’s results.
The companies are still working on Yahoo’s transition to using AdCenter, Microsoft’s self-serve search ad platform. “As we have said all along, our primary goal is to provide advertisers with a quality transition experience in 2010, while being mindful of the holiday season,” Nadella wrote.
During its second-quarter earnings call, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said she expects the company to be using AdCenter in October, but she stressed that the company wouldn’t be rushed. “It’s very important that our advertisers are ready, that AdCenter is ready, and we’re not going to pull the trigger until we’re sure of it,” she said at the time. “We feel good, but because the holiday season is so important to advertisers, we won’t launch unless we have a smooth transition.”
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com