As per the terms of a deal announced today between AOL and Microsoft, Google will be replaced by Bing as the default search engine for AOL’s sites over the next 10 years.
In addition, the partnership will see AOL handling the direct sales of Microsoft’s display advertising business, which includes mobile and video.
Microsoft released a statement today stating this deal shows how committed the company is to to strengthening its search and search advertising business:
“Today’s news is evidence of Microsoft’s increased focus on our strengths: in this case, search and search advertising and building great content and consumer services.
Further, Microsoft believes this deal is validation of the fact Bing delivers high quality search results high performing display advertisements:
“This deal with AOL is the latest to validate the quality of Bing results and the performance of the Bing Ads marketplace.”
This marks another long-term deal lost to a rival search company. In November, Google was replaced by Yahoo as the default search engine for Mozilla Firefox. As a result, Google’s desktop search market share dropped to its lowest point since 2009.
Google has yet to comment on losing the deal it held since 2002, and it is not known whether or not the company even tried to renew the partnership with AOL.
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