When I first heard about the Microsoft and Yahoo! deal this morning, I did what undoubtedly many others did too. I entered “yahoo microsoft deal” in the query window of my favorite search engine and waited for the search results. At the top I saw several news links, blog links, and the like. And close to the top of those search results was a link to Choice, Value, Innovation, the deal’s promotional website.
It isn’t much. It includes a press release, with all top of page links leading back to the same text along with accompanying videos of Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promoting the deal. Oh, and a sign up form to get email updates (about what, there’s no clue). (Out of curiosity, I signed up, so I’ll update here when something comes through.)
But why with every news outlet or tech blogger out there eager to disseminate and comment on the story would Microsoft and Yahoo! bother to invest into a separate website to promote their deal? Well, I think it’s precisely for that reason. Both companies assumed that many, many people would be entering “microsoft yahoo deal” into their search engine and they wanted their version of the story to show up on the first page, rather than everyone else’s (like, that of a skeptic blogger or ten). Microsoft and Yahoo! wanted to mitigate the PR damage from the failed February 2009 merger. (Just do a search on “microsoft yahoo deal fiasco” and you will find plenty of commentary on that failed deal.)
Let me offer you mine. Based on the internal chatter at Microsoft at the time, the earlier deal failed for several reasons, but a top reason was the intense distrust by Yahoo! rank and file and software designers of Microsoft and of CEO Steve Ballmer and the reciprocal disdain of Yahoo! by Microsoft programmers. There was talk of a “poison pill” put in the deal by then Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang. Bottom line, the deal failed, Yahoo! stock sank, and Yang lost his job. Microsoft stock took less of a hit, but heads rolled there as well over what was quite embarrassing for the company.
So naturally this time around the Boards of Directors of both partners would want to make sure there was no slip up. Given that employees as well as Wall Street, regulatory bodies and “the world” were likely to be suspicious and scrutinize this new deal very closely, they needed to craft their message carefully to make sure the deal’s terms and promises looked solid in the eyes of all those constituencies. And so I believe that the Choice, Value, Innovation website was created to drive a message of unity to the employees of both companies (why can’t we all just get along?) while promoting the deal to Wall Street, regulators, and everyone else.
But here’s where something that made me go “Hmmmmmm” happened. When I searched “microsoft yahoo deal” on Google, the website link showed up. But not on Bing or Yahoo! search engines. And what’s even more interesting, is that when I queried “yahoo microsoft deal”, the website did not show up in Google, Bing or Yahoo! Is this an omission, or a clear indication that Microsoft drove the message? Possibly, but either way the fact that the website created to tell the world about how they plan to change the landscape of search does not show up on page one of search results in the market’s top three search engines is deeply ironic. Search results never lie. If you don’t search engine optimize, it will show (or rather, not show). I sure hope this SEO snafu does not portend the future of this union.