• Cnet News.com, Thursday, August 7, 2008 11:30 AM

Online marketers aren't happy with the way the Microhoo saga played out. According to Cnet's Stefanie Olsen, it's not Yahoo remaining independent of Microsoft that's so disappointing; rather, it's Google solidifying a 70% share of the search market. And that share will probably grow, thanks to the search partnership Yahoo announced with Google in June.

Marketers complain that Google's dominance limits their options to deliver on search campaigns. "We always have a need for multiple sources of quality traffic and we don't see that need going away as Google's share increases," says Will Margiloff, CEO and founder of the agency Innovation Interactive. "Complexity is good, consolidation is bad."

In other words, search advertising becoming synonymous with Google is a bad thing. And the economic downturn could only make it worse, as marketers turn to more performance-based media buys. As Michael Jones, an executive from Internet marketing agency PepperJam, pointed out, "There's not a de-acceleration of spending, but there's an intensified focus on return on investment."

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