The big news last week was that Microsoft and Yahoo! are entering into a Search Engine partnership. The ten year deal has the two companies teaming up to challenge search giant Google’s dominance. We are still waiting for details to unfold but two things are already crystal clear. Microsoft’s Bing engine will power Yahoo! Search and Microsoft’s AdCenter will handle all of the advertising duties.

When will this happen? Well…. as with anything Microsoft does, the trust-busters will want to take a good look at this one. However, at the end of the day this deal should have no problem getting the green light. From that point, speculators are saying we can expect to see the proposed changes go live on the Internet some three to six months later. More than likely, this will be sometime in early 2010. This gives those of us concerned with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plenty of time to get our ducks in a row.

While nobody is predicting that the Micro-hoo partnership will dethrone Google, it certainly will be a force to be reckoned with. The winds of change they are a blowing. Therefore, there is no better time than the present to make sure your website is optimized and placing well in Microsoft’s Bing search engine results. According to the latest statistics, once the deal goes through Bing will have roughly twenty percent of the search engine market. This is a number too large to be ignored.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization