It looks as though the Yahoo-Microsoft transition is starting to become reality. The companies announced last week that Microsoft’s Bing was powering Yahoo’s organic search results in the U.S. and Canada.

Earlier this week, the companies also gave advertisers the go ahead to start transitioning from Yahoo search ads to Microsoft Bing search ads. As this transition begins to unfold, many of us can start to see what some of the changes will be and how they might impact the future of search.

From a visual perspective, Yahoo Search still looks the same but has a small “Powered by Bing” at the bottom of the results page. Another aspect worth noting is that the two companies combined own approximately 28 percent of the search market, according to many search reports.

Word is that, based upon information from Yahoo’s API team, the company intends to use Bing’s index but apply a slightly different algorithm to it. In other words, the search engines will still produce different search results. From this information, many still believe that users will still see value in Yahoo search.

The paid search transition, on the other hand, could have a more dramatic impact. Bing has been very effective in pay per click, and as a result, it offers a high click through rate.

I would have a tendency to think that Bing advertising will see many, many more people using it.

Although the companies would like to have the paid search transition completed by October, they have said it could be delayed if they see a potential interference with this year’s holiday season.

Regardless of what other changes will come as this transition is fully rolled out, there is no doubt that it will be marked as a turning point in the search and advertising industry. Interestingly, many in the industry are calling  these latest developments a “resurrection” of the second and third search engines.  Do you agree?