I sure do miss the classic Overture interface.  The bidding setup was a joy to advertisers, but along came Yahoo! Search Marketing, also known as the “Panama” interface.  I eventually came to appreciate this interface, despite its flaws.  If you’re a Safari user, you know what I’m talking about…

MSN AdCenter has always been my least favorite interface of the Big 3.  I hope they finally put some resources into it given the boost in users it’s about to receive.

For web site owners, Google Instant doesn’t change how sites are ranked, but it does change how people search.  Having tested it, Google Instant definitely saves time from having to press return and re-enter keyword phrases.  The key is still the quality of the results, not the speed of a search, so Bing is going to have make sure their results are in fact, “smarter.”

Advantage, Google.

It’s worth noting that Bing has made some admirable attempts the past year to compete with industry-giant, Google, and powering Yahoo is its most aggressive attempt yet.

With the recent Microsoft-Yahoo merger, it will now be even more interesting to see how the search market competition plays out.

Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, will provide the search results for Yahoo! enabling Microsoft to have the best chance at taking down industry-giant, Google.  The transition in the search results is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

To recap the deal framework, Yahoo! search results would be powered by Bing including sponsored ads. Yahoo! is relieved of many search associated costs but maintains their brand name, signature look and features. Yahoo! and Microsoft would combine for 28% of the search market share which is still dwarfed by Google’s 65%, but this is still the biggest threat to Google in quite some time.

Yahoo! is certainly struggling with only 15% of the search market in their grasp.  With Bing improving the most of late, this percentage could drop even more.  While Bing and Yahoo! are still in the midst of a merger that will combine the efforts of both brands to overtake Google, Yahoo! brass still want their brand to be a powerful entity by itself as these improvements show.

One interesting component of all this is Microsoft. There’s been some chatter of them bidding for the rights to provide AOL’s search results via their 10 month old “decision engine” Bing. This would be another step towards Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Google and claim more of the search market. However, their bid would likely be outbid significantly by Google.

One can only admire Bing’s effort to compete against Google’s powerhouse.  You might recall last summer’s deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!.  Once this deal is reviewed and finalized, it will be rather interesting to see how Bing progresses as they will be the clear cut number 2 in this market.