As of 1st January 2016, Google will no longer be the search provider for American technology enterprise AOL, instead Microsoft, with its search engine Bing will take over as part of a 10 year deal.
Google first became the core search engine for AOL in 2002, when Google was still very much in its infancy and arguably made the search company the powerhouse it is today. But now, in 2015, we see that in the United States, the online media firm only holds about 1% of search traffic in comparison to Google’s 65%. So this changeover won’t really be noticed by Google.
However, this news is a big step for Bing and Microsoft. Not only is Bing going to be the provider for searches, but Microsoft is also giving its display ad sales business to AOL and AppNexus, claiming that Bing generates enough of a return to be able to operate on its own.
The result of this deal is that, AOL, a company which was bought earlier in the month by Verizon Communications, and AppNexus, will take responsibility for the management and sales of all Microsoft’s display, mobile and video advertising in North America, Brazil, Japan, and a large part of Western Europe (including the U.K.).
In the coming months, it will be interesting to see what AOL and AppNexus respectively intend on doing with Microsoft’s display network, and in turn, what Microsoft will output now it has more time to focus on its computing and cloud platforms. One thing is for sure, with this acquisition, AOL has significantly more in the way of ad inventory to work with while it focuses on becoming a more formidable entity in the digital ad and internet marketing industry.
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