The battle to control the field of mobile search engine optimization (SEO) continued late last week, as telecom provider T-Mobile announced that it would replace Yahoo with Google as the default search on its main online portal.
Some Yahoo-based services will continue to work on T-Mobile, according to eWeek, including Yahoo Mail and Yahoo messenger. However, Google will now power T-Mobile’s central Web2Go portal, which provides search services to non-smartphone internet users.

Some search engine optimization (SEO) experts say, though, that default search portals will mean less and less as mobile internet users switch to smartphones in increasing numbers. Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land says that "this switcheroo of the T-Mobile ‘default’ relationship doesn’t necessarily help Google or harm Yahoo in a major way. There will be some incremental loss or gain (depending on which company we’re talking about) in search query volume and related clicks however."

The alliances between search engines and mobile carriers have become an important part of the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape, according to SEO practitioners.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.