Yahoo! recently announced they are in the testing phase of have Yahoo! Search results powered by Microsoft. Initial testing will only provide the Microsoft powered results to about 25% of the U.S. search traffic on Yahoo!

During this testing the user will not notice a difference in the listings powered by Yahoo! versus those by Microsoft; however, other layout tests are being conducted with this Microsoft test. The near future will also see Microsoft powered results making it to Yahoo!'s mobile platform.

Following successful testing, Yahoo! states their timeline to roll Microsoft powered organic search results to all U.S. and Canada traffic in August or September of 2010. Paid search listings will following suite in October.

The “alliance” between Yahoo! and Microsoft was announced back in February of 2010.

What does this mean to you?

Users of Yahoo! will likely see more focus from the company on usability improvements and an effort to pitch Yahoo! has a complete launching point for all of your Internet needs. Less competition in search algorithms, but probably a smart business move for Yahoo! Time will tell.

Today Google announced that Caffeine has become it's new search index. Caffeine will provide Google searchers with 50% fresher results and will consist of the largest index of websites that Google has ever provided.

What really sets Caffeine apart is the way it indexes the web. The previous index fetched new content in layers. This would create a significant delay in how fast Google could bring new content. With Caffeine smaller "packets" of the index are constantly being updated to bring you fresher content.

This faster, fresher index by Google will no doubt change how the web is presented, but it will also change the thought of publishing content. Caffeine's ability to better crawl and index the web will increase the emphasis of importance of content you present on your website. Caffeine reinforces the basic theory of SEO, "Content is King" and now Google can find it even faster.

Yahoo! has announced coming updates that will affect the algorithms that impact crawling, indexing, and ranking web pages.

From Yahoo! Search:

"The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process."

Yahoo! expects the update to complete over the next few days.

A user asked the Google Webmaster team, "How many changes did Google make to their primary search algorithm in 2009". Matt Cutts' most recent video post answered this question and confirmed what many have speculated about Google algorithm updates for some time now.

Matt stated that Google "makes a change to their core search algorithm at least once a day." He further mentions that in 2009 Google "updated the search algorithm 350 to 400 times.

The video can be seen in its entirety at Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel.

Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s Webspam team.