Yahoo! Search is Dead... Amen.

Last week Yahoo! began transitioning certain back-end functions for its Search product over to Microsoft's search platform. The transition is now complete. If you follow the world of SEO closely, welcome to a two-horse race.

Yahoo! Web, Image, and Video search experiences on both desktop and mobile devices are now being powered by the Microsoft platform in the US and Canada (English) and more markets will follow shortly. Yahoo! is advising that webmasters continue to provide site information to Yahoo! using Site Explorer until the full global transition is complete (not expected until 2012). 

All actions performed on Site Explorer that webmasters perform including site and Web page submissions, feed submission deleting and un-deleting URL, adding dynamic URLs and undoing dynamic URLs will be shared with Bing. Site Explorer will still exist after the transition and will ultimately provide analysis of the traffic that sites receive from search originating on Yahoo! and its partner sites. Yahoo! is working to finalize a revenue model for the Yahoo! Search BOSS program, and will be offering other search-related tools for publishers in the months to come. 

Yahoo! stood firm with its promise to "continue to drive technology innovation in the search experience to bring more value to users and advertisers alike." 

And now for an important counter quote from Lawrence Garfield (Danny Devito) in the 1991 film Other People's Money:

"Amen. And amen. And amen. You have to forgive me. I'm not familiar with the local custom. Where I come from, you always say 'Amen' after you hear a prayer. Because that's what you just heard - a prayer. Where I come from, that particular prayer is called 'The Prayer for the Dead.'"