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Is Yahoo Testing Non-Bing Powered Search Results?

Yahoo says they are always experimenting with search but would not confirm or deny reports that they are testing dropping Bing powered search results.

Barry Schwartz on April 9, 2015 at 2:03 pm

Business Insider reports seeing Yahoo’s mobile search results without the “powered by Bing” logo in the footer of the search results page.

Typically, when you search on Yahoo on your mobile or desktop devices, you will see a disclaimer at the footer of the page that reads “powered by Bing.” It looks like this on a mobile device:

But Business Insider said they saw the Yahoo mobile search results without the logo but the search results themselves matched what the Bing experience would have been anyway. So maybe Yahoo was just testing removing the logo but not the different search engine algorithm?

We do know that Microsoft and Yahoo have extended their search deal for 30-days while they continue to work out a new deal going forward. It is possible that Yahoo is buying time to potentially launch their own search and search ad platform, but that honestly doesn’t seem realistic. We have not heard much from Yahoo on potentially building their own search engine, even though that is what they had prior to signing with Microsoft.

Business Insider said:

A couple weeks ago, a person who claims to have been working in Yahoo’s search division until recently told us that, under Mayer, Yahoo built its own mobile search engine. This source that Yahoo was testing it with 15% of its mobile users. We’ve been unable to corroborate all of those details, but — thanks to instructions from that source — we were able to able to load the new version of Yahoo’s mobile search engine.

A Yahoo spokesperson told us:

Search is an important part of Yahoo’s business and we’re always experimenting and looking to improve the experience for our users. We have nothing to announce at this time.

Yahoo did not confirm or deny any of what Business Insider is reporting, so maybe there is a Yahoo Search powered search engine in the near future?

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.