Timeline: Microsoft and Yahoo

Microsoft and Yahoo have a long relationship as both partners and competitors in search and search advertising, as the following timeline shows:

Dec. 2002. Yahoo acquires Inktomi, the main provider of algorithmic search results on Microsoft’s MSN Search site.

Early 2003. Microsoft executives reportedly approve plans to build the company’s own Internet search engine rather than continuing to rely on technology from Inktomi/Yahoo.

June 2003. MSNBot, a Microsoft technology that crawls Web pages for search indexing, is discovered by Web site owners. Microsoft acknowledges that it plans to build its own Web search engine rather than continuing to rely on technology from Inktomi.

July 2003. Yahoo acquires Overture, the main provider of search advertising on MSN Search. Publicly, Microsoft claims it will remain with Overture/Yahoo, but it begins working on its own search-advertising platform (code-named Moonstone) in late 2003.

Nov. 2004. Microsoft’s redesigned Web search engine, based on Microsoft search technology rather than technology from Inktomi/Yahoo, conducts its first public beta. It launches the following February as MSN Search and is later renamed Windows Live Search and then Live Search.