In a move that further fortifies Microsoft’s position in its search-engine scuffle against Google, Yahoo Tuesday transferred its backend search results in the US and Canada to Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

According to a corporate blog posting from Microsoft, the results of a Yahoo search on Tuesday looked quite similar to the week-back proceeding, other than the fact that three words, in small script, now appear at the bottom of the page – “Powered by Bing.” As a result of the historic move, nearly 30 percent of US searches made either from Yahoo sites or Bing will henceforth flowing from one search engine – Bing.

The completion of Yahoo’s transfer of its backend search to Bing comes more than a year after Yahoo and Microsoft announced their Internet-search collaboration to challenge the search market dominance of Google. 

As per the terms of the Yahoo-Microsoft agreement signed last year, while Yahoo will take over the global salesforce responsibilities for the advertisers of both the companies, Bing will power Yahoo’s backend search.

With most market observers noting that Tuesday was a momentous day, not only for Yahoo and Microsoft, but for the history of Internet search, veteran search-industry observer Danny Sullivan, who is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, said: “It is a big milestone. We're down to two major search providers for the first time since, well, ever.”