On Monday, July 14, both companies announced the plans of Yahoo!, the Internet’s top search directory, to buy Overture, the Internet’s top pay-per-click engine. The move was not surprising to industry insiders, but was very surprising to the public.
Overture is well established as the leader in pay-per-click advertising on the Web, providing paid search results for many search engines and directories, including Yahoo. The purchase of the company, at a price of an estimated 1.63 billion dollars, will establish Yahoo! (arguably the most recognizable brand name on the Internet) as the leader in Internet advertising as the two combine to “create an online advertising force to be reckoned with.”
The real question comes down to how this will effect Yahoo’s relationship with Google, which, while continually being in contention for #1 in search use with Yahoo, is also the provider of Yahoo’s search functionality. Google is also the number one competitor with Overture for pay-per-click marketing online. There may be space for both, as estimates show that the online advertising market in commercial search will grow from 2 billion in 2003 to 5 billion in 2006 (Piper Jaffrey). I predict the fighting will be fierce, however.
This monumental change in the online search and advertising market will definitely change things for Internet marketers of every level and is something that needs to be watched closely. This transaction is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of this year.
Aaron Turpen is the author of “The eBay PowerSeller’s Book of
Knowledge” and the editor/publisher of two successful newsletters, in
their fourth year of publication, The Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly
Newsletter and Aaronz Auction Newsletter. You can find out more about
these and other great resources from Aaron at his website
http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
