Yahoo and Microsoft today have altered the terms of their search partnership moving forward. According to Yahoo, the agreement gives it more flexibility when it comes to its search business on desktop and mobile platforms, though Yahoo will still place Bing ads in its desktop search traffic. The companies have decided that Microsoft will sell ads only for its Bing Ads platform and Yahoo will sell ads only for its Yahoo Gemini platform. This way, they can integrate the sales and engineering teams within their own organizations to improve performance. Microsoft will continue to pay Yahoo a percentage of Bing Ads revenue generated by Yahoo searches, which rely on Microsoft's algorithms. Yahoo and Microsoft say the changes will improve the search experience for all users. The companies first forged the search partnership in 2009.


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