After a couple of failed deals it has finally happened. Yahoo and Microsoft announced this morning that they have partnered on a search deal.

Here are some resources covering the deal:

USAToday.com Press Release

Search Engine Land Conference Call Live Blogging

Here is a recap of the main points from Search Engine Land Deal Details:

The term of the agreement is 10 years

Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms [Note from Danny Sullivan: Exclusive suggests Yahoo itself won't be able to use the technology or develop it, which means after 10 years, what's left probably isn't that useful]

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.

Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.

Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology. [Note from Danny: AOL used similar words about how it would somehow make Google-powered search "better" despite not owning the technology. People still went to Google].

Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.

• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country. [Note from Danny: What's the amount? And this is far shorter than I'd have expected].

At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.

The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

This deal is pretty big as you would imagine. Ultimately Microsoft gets Yahoo’s search technology and will integrate it with Bing. There are a lot of unanswered questions still and it will probably be awhile until things shake out(regulatory review by end of the year, integration states early 2010 probably, then work out the bugs for 2 years or so).

Will this really help Yahoo in the long run or will this be another AOL(who by the way, just purchased back their shares that Google owned). As the popular series “Will It Blend” would show:

Yahoo the next AOL?

Ever since I started in the internet marketing industry, one of the factors to the success of a campaign is the client’s involvement. Ultimately from an agency standpoint we deal with multiple clients that are in multiple industries. We spend a lot of time researching and learning the client’s industry to be able to put together better strategies but ultimately the client is going to know more about their products, services, and/or industry than we could. I don’t think I’m totally off base. We, as the SEM firm, spend 1 to 4+ years with a client lets say. The client has been in their industry forever(exaggerating, but 10-15 years or more compared to 1-4 years is a big difference).

Jill Whalen wrote a post over at Search Engine Land this morning called “Most of SEO Is Just A Boondoggle“. At the end of her post she says the following about a client’s role in SEO:

Client involvement is key

Don’t get me wrong, this is not an SEO is dead article. SEO is alive and well if you focus on the things that matter. Part of the problem is that the things that matter are often a lot of hard work that need client involvement, whereas the boondoggles can often be done strictly through the SEO company. Most clients are too busy to get involved, which is why they’re outsourcing their SEO in the first place. But a professional SEO company cannot get long-lasting, needle-moving results for a client that isn’t willing to help.

I think she hits the nail on the head with that. Long lasting results need a good relationship between the search marketer and the client. There are a lot of positive things that SEM/SEO marketers can do for clients without a lot of input from a client but to keep the results moving in a positive direction there needs to be that interaction.

When clients are involved in their SEO campaigns, it opens a lot of doors. From an on-page stand point we are able to build out a site faster and with better content. As I mentioned above, we can research and try to learn a client’s business and industry inside and out but at the end of the day, the client will still know more. They know what changes are happening in the industry, what competitors are doing, new products or breakthroughs. All of that information could be turned into content or used to help build out a site. From a link building standpoint, clients know what the major industry publications are, their partners or distributors, trade organizations, etc. These things can be used to build quality and relevant links.

Search engine marketing takes work and time, both from the client and the marketing firm. A big key to success is a good solid partnership between the SEM/SEO firm and the client, end of story.