Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is the current web search engine (advertised as a “decision engine”) from Microsoft. Bing was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009 at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego. It went fully online on June 3, 2009 with a preview version released on June 1, 2009.

Submitting to Bing.com is very simple.

Ever since the announcement that Bing and Yahoo! will fold into one search engine, there have been a lot of questions as to when exactly this will happen, what it means for advertisers, how it will affect users, and whether it will hurt Google.  I have spent some time trying to find answers to these questions, and thought I’d share what I found.

Most important to note is that the transition from Yahoo! to Bing will take anywhere from 12-24 months, starting in the US and then expanding to other regions. Therefore, advertisers’ and users need not worry about it just yet! When the transition is finally complete, here are some key points to know.

What exactly does the agreement entail?

• Yahoo! will adopt Bing’search engine.
• Yahoo! will take control of premium search advertising for both
  Yahoo! and Bing (Current Yahoo! premium advertisers have a dedicated
  sales team).
• Display advertising on other Microsoft and Yahoo! properties (such as Yahoo! finance) will not be affected – only search ads.