Now is when the hard work begins for Microsoft and Yahoo, after finally getting the regulatory green light from the U.S. and the European Union to implement their ballyhooed search engine partnership.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission on Thursday both unconditionally approved Microsoft and Yahoo's plan to work together in the field of Internet search.
U.S. residents continue to shift their search engine use from Yahoo to Microsoft, a trend that started in mid-2009 after Microsoft introduced its new Bing engine and the companies signed a deal to partner in search.
Google's recently released Social Search feature, whose raison d'etre is to include content from users' social-network contacts in search results, can barely tap into the connections people have made on Facebook, the world's largest social network.
Google's Social Search service, which includes public content from users' social networks in search results, is getting promoted to Google.com from the company's Labs site, meaning it is no longer considered an early prototype.
Google is making it easier for people to find factual answers and event information directly in its search engine results, as it continues evolving and enhancing its core product, the company said Friday.
Apple reportedly is in talks with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone's Safari Web browser, according to Business Week. The idea may sound surprising, but it shows how deep the ongoing battle between Google and Apple (which started after the Google Voice iPhone application was barred entry into the iTunes App Store) has become.
Google boosted its efforts to boot out rogue and malicious advertisers in the fourth quarter by going after them more aggressively and making it more difficult for them to weasel their way back into its AdWords system.
Microsoft announced plans to cut the length of time it stores IP addresses of Web searchers using its Bing search engine from 18 months to six in a bid to improve its privacy track record.
Microsoft continues to gain share in the search market, growing slightly faster in December than any of its competitors, according to a report by comScore.
Google Inc. continues to hold its own atop the search market despite being targeted by Microsoft Corp. and its well-received Bing search engine in recent months.
Google's decision to go toe-to-toe with one of the world's most powerful countries could provide huge benefits to its image while having little short-term impact on the company's financial condition, analysts said.
Google risks having its online services blocked in China as it defies local authorities by ending censorship of results on its Chinese search engine, analysts said.
A long time ago, in the mid-to-late 1990s, AltaVista was a major search engine, but with the rise of Google its popularity slid, eventually becoming irrelevant to most users.
Yahoo will begin inserting Twitter posts directly into its general Web search results page on Thursday, expanding on an initial integration of Twitter into its search engine.