It’s been a long time in the making, but the recent announcement by Microsoft that it has signed a cooperative agreement with Yahoo enabling Yahoo to use the former’s search engine platform is quite a watershed in the online information world.

There was a time when Yahoo was seen as a leader in the Internet search arena and when Google may have been seen as another upstart with one of those silly dot com era names. A rather long drawn out latency period combined with a few seemingly questionable business decisions led to a virtual standstill for Yahoo, at a time when Google grabbed the reigns and began its rapid expansion towards complete dominance in the market.

These days, the vast majority of online information searchers usually choose to use the popular Google platform to find what they’re looking for. Microsoft and Yahoo have been runner-up in the second and third places respectively – for quite some time now. They have both been at the negotiating table for years and an attempt by Microsoft to buy the other company out failed a little over a year ago.

Under the new deal, Microsoft gets an exclusive 10 year license to access Yahoo’s search technologies and may integrate these into its existing platforms if needed. Yahoo may now utilize Microsoft’s new Bing search platform. Indeed, Bing has recently been rolled out in an aggressive marketing campaign and it is thought that this fresh face in the marketplace may have given Yahoo additional incentive to actually ink the deal.

Many analysts, including leading blogger Vincent Fernando, question the viability of the deal from Yahoo’s point of view. He estimates that Yahoo is moving down the value chain and if the company decides to completely adopt Bing as their own search, will be left with little of any tangibility to mark them as a viable ongoing concern.

The deal must pass regulatory approval before it can go forward. Microsoft appears particularly buoyant about the idea, with CEO Steve Ballmer stating that “it will enable us to innovate in search and provide consumers and advertisers with better transparency and choice.” As the deal will take up to two years to fully roll out, Google will have plenty of time to call on its own mighty resources to answer back any perceived challenge.

It’s quite difficult to even begin to imagine the combined “power” of Microsoft and Yahoo actually bringing any sort of a real fight to Google, given not only Google’s absolute dominance in the search arena, but also the incredible competition which is coming from the Mountain View based organization in the software and operating system fields, an area formerly dominated entirely by Microsoft.

As the deal is rolled out, expect to see innovations within Internet search technology and also see more competition in the world of search engine advertising and pay per click.

Adam Toren, Co-Founder of Young Entrepreneur, specializes in maximising the profitability of failing businesses with his own unique ‘bottom line’ method. Adam, along with his brother, have established, bought and then sold on an assortment of companies in recent years. At present, they own and operate a very successful publishing company and variety of online businesses.

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