A partnership between the Internet portal YAHOO and the online-review site YELP will incorporate Yelp’s listings and reviews of local businesses into results on Yahoo’s search engine.
Surfacing more content from around the Web, such as Yelp’s local listings, could help Yahoo differentiate from Microsoft Corp.’s Bing, its partner in search, and compete with Google Inc., the market leader.
- Data about local businesses has become an important part of search engines and other online services as consumers rely on smartphones to navigate the physical world.
- Microsoft recently struck a deal with mobile check-in software maker Foursquare.
- Yelp has previously done similar content partnerships with Microsoft and Apple Inc.
Yahoo is part of a search pact with Microsoft, signed in 2010, that executives close to Ms. Mayer have described as a disappointment.
- Under the deal, Microsoft gets 12% of the revenue Yahoo generates from search ads appearing next to search results.
- Yahoo is unlikely to get out of its contract with Microsoft until at least 2015, the midpoint of the 10-year agreement, when either party is permitted to opt out.
Search ads, which make up about little more than one-third of Yahoo’s revenue, rose 8% to $461 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, after payouts to Microsoft. In December 2013, Yahoo claimed 10.8% of the search market, compared with Google’s 67.3% and Microsoft’s 18.2%, according to comScore.
Read more: Yahoo reportedly tapping Yelp for local business data to improve its search engine