SEOmoz | Top 10 Things the Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Changes for SEO

Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a long-rumoured internet search deal that will help the two companies take on chief rival Google.

Microsoft's Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft's online offering.

A New Local Ad Strategy for AdWords

Google has announced a new AdWords feature called location extensions. The feature allows advertisers to add dynamic addresses to their ads. If you're a business owner, you can set up extensions by linking an AdWords campaign to your Local Business Center (LBC) account. If you're not the primary business owner of the locations you're advertising, you can manually enter addresses directly into AdWords.

Video about Google Local Business Center Introduction

Google matches business locations to users' search terms and shows the address with advertisers' text ads. When Google can't determine a location or if the address isn't relevant, users will just see the ad without the address.

Advertisers also have the option of not making the address dynamic. If they prefer, they can simply show a specific address for an individual ad.

Ads can show with their relevant extensions on Google and Google Maps. They will show as regular text ads without the extensions on partner sites.

Location extensions will become fully available in the coming weeks. Some advertisers already have access to the feature. Local business ads will no longer be a separate format. Advertisers who already have local business ads, however, will be happy to know that their ads will continue to run as long as they're not edited.

Information about the local extensions can be found here.