Microsoft’s Bing search engine isn’t getting much branding play on the “powered by Bing” Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) search result pages, which are making their debut this week. Do a search on Yahoo, and you’ll need a magnifying glass to figure out that the results are actually coming from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). The transition is ongoing, but for some Yahoo searches the words “powered by Bing” are now showing up at the bottom of the results page in what appears to be size 8 font (via Marketing Pilgrim).
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz had said when the search partnership was announced more than a year ago that the Bing logo would not appear on Yahoo search results pages and that Yahoo’s ties to Bing would instead be called attention to via some text. Seeing the result in action, however, is still striking, especially when compared to how some other similar deals have played out. AOL (NYSE: AOL), for instance, prominently includes the words “enhanced by Google” below the search box on its home page.
Yahoo, which had started testing bringing Bing’s search results to its search pages last month, said Tuesday that it would be “transitioning the back-end technology” for Yahoo Search in the U.S. and Canada to Microsoft this week. For now, only select searches are bringing up the text “powered by Bing.”
Next up is the transition of Yahoo search ad accounts to Microsoft’s adCenter. Yahoo says it’s in the process of testing that with a “limited number of accounts.”