Back in July, the world of search engine optimization was shocked to hear that Yahoo and Bing planned to partner for better search results. Yahoo saw better organized search results in partnering with Bing, while Microsoft saw more possibilities with incorporating ads for more revenue. Bing, or MSN up until this past summer, has been the number three search engine and, as a result, many advertisers have been reluctant to have ads posted on it. A partnership between both number two and three search engines would be beneficial for both, especially considering neither has much of a hold on Google’s dominance.

But, as of a few weeks ago, the partnership between both has been finalized. According to the linked article, the transaction between both should be complete by 2010. While we haven’t seen much change on Yahoo or Bing since the announcement in July, early 2010 will probably bring on such changes to both search engines. So, what will users probably see?

Both Yahoo and Bing will still be two separate search engines, but how results appear on both will be different. Right now, Yahoo has far more ads on it, while Bing gives the user more keyword-specific options in a search. The combined algorithms will allow Yahoo to have such search options, while Bing/Microsoft will benefit from increased advertising. As far as search engine dominance goes, the combined results will still be less than Google’s (which has been about 75 percent), but the partnership will allow them to have a greater share than before.

How will this affect Yahoo’s reputation as the online retail-friendly search engine? Not significantly, as online stores still continue to rank higher on Bing than they do on Google. In fact, the results on Bing give users options to choose a more shopping-friendly keyword route, if that’s what he or she is looking for, or other keyword routes that are more informational. This way, both the shoppers and those doing research can find relevant search results without having to filter through several pages of both retail and informational websites.