Twitter and Google got their very public divorce in 2011 after a brief flirtation period with realtime search. Since then, Google has deployed Google+ to mostly positive results. Twitter has been dating and looking for a replacement. Now, they’re in deep with Yahoo!
This is an interesting partnership for several reasons.
- First and foremost, Yahoo! is not a search giant. They enjoy only 5% of the search market. Still, that’s a big market when you think about it. Yahoo! is still one of the most trafficked websites on the Web.
- This deal looks to be better for Yahoo! than Twitter on the surface of things. I mean, what’s to be gained from this relationship for Twitter other than having additional capital to use for other things? Yahoo! is getting a big asset to beef up its SERPs.
- The announcement indicates that Yahoo! is planning to beef up its content with tweets in the following areas: “sports, entertainment, music, and more.” It’s unclear how it will benefit regular search marketers.
Nevertheless, I expect that there will be ways for the run-of-the-mill search engine marketer to capitalize on this relationship – particularly if you are in one of the above-mentioned niches.
What do you think? Is this a good deal for Yahoo!? How about Twitter?