SEO Blog

Yahoo has made its first reply to Microsoft since receiving a hostility threatening letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Saturday.

In a long response letter, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang says that the Yahoo Board of Directors is open to a deal with Microsoft but feels the price offered is too low.

“Our Board’s view of your proposal has not changed. We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders. Contrary to statements in your letter, stockholders representing a significant portion of our outstanding shares have indicated to us that your proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!. Furthermore, as a result of the decrease in your own stock price, the value of your proposal today is significantly lower than it was when you made your initial proposal.”

Reading the entire letter it becomes clear that Jerry Yang knows Yahoo is going to be sold. Much of it deals with initiatives Yahoo has taken to increase its own value and covers the moves Yahoo continues to make seeking other supportive suitors.

Microsoft delivered an ultimatum to Yahoo over the weekend. Tired of waiting while Yahoo delays what most observers believe is inevitable, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer issued a 21 day deadline to Yahoo’s Board of Directors informing them that if they don’t accept an offer for their company within three weeks, they will face full-fledged hostility from his.

The deadline warning comes in the form of a 6 paragraph letter to Yahoo’s board. In it, Ballmer notes the dramatic lengths Yahoo has gone to trying to stave off an acquisition by Microsoft. It also correctly notes that none of Yahoo’s efforts have been remotely successful and that a saviour/suitor is not likely to materialize.

“While there has been some limited interaction between management of our two companies, there has been no meaningful negotiation to conclude an agreement. We understand that you have been meeting to consider and assess your alternatives, including alternative transactions with others in the industry, but we’ve seen no indication that you have authorized Yahoo management to negotiate with Microsoft. This is despite the fact that our proposal is the only alternative put forward that offers your shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.”

The shock has worn off. To be honest, it didn’t last as long as I’d hoped it would. The truth is, Ask’s death doesn’t make much of a material difference to Metamend or any other SEO firm for that matter. We might have been very good friends but this is a business environment after all.

We never really did a lot of business on Ask. Our clients haven’t considered their placement on Ask critical and, for the most part, neither have we. Google, Yahoo, and even Microsoft have always driven far larger numbers of website visitors, making Ask a fourth-place second thought sort of address. For most of us, Ask never really mattered, at least not in a financial sense.

Nevertheless, most people in the search marketing community literally loved Ask.com/. We loved former CEO Jim Lanzone. We loved evangelist Gary Price. We loved hanging out with Patrick Crisp and the hilarious characters from the PR department.

Most of all, we loved what Ask had become and we watched as other search engines innovated on Ask’s ideas. Ask inspired all of us. That’s why it was included in the “Big4″, even though its market-share was consistently lower than AOL’s. The emotional outpouring of Ask obits is indicitive of how much the SEO community loved what was “the little engine that should”. Here are seven reasons we’ll miss Ask:

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Oscar Wilde, 1892

The very best search engine on the Internet died today. Early this afternoon, Ask.com announced the layoff of 40-key employees and a radical shift in its focus and development. The property is still active but, if new CEO Jim Safka’s comments to the Wall St. Journal are any indication, the search engine itself is, as of today, lifeless.

“Mr. Safka outlined a new strategy for the search engine that aims to increase the loyalty of its core customers. Instead of trying to build products that would appeal to “the digerati” or “West Coast elite,” as Ask had been, he wants to focus Ask on meeting the needs of its core audience, predominantly women who use the site to ask questions about topics like entertainment and health. To do that, he says the company will launch new products and enhance its technology through efforts like pulling in more community-generated answers.” source: WSJ.com