Pandia follows up on the possible Microsoft Yahoo! acquisition and gives you the main headlines of the week.

44.6 billion US dollars is apparently not enough to buy Yahoo! The Yahoo! board will reject Microsoft’s offer on Monday.

It should be noted though that Yahoo! is in so much trouble that it will have to find a solution to its current financial predicament. The Microsoft/Yahoo! story is therefore not over.

The decision to reject the offer signals that Yahoo’s board is digging in its heels for what could be a long takeover battle, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company is apparently unlikely to consider any offer below USD 40 per share. Microsoft is offering USD 31.

The New York Times reports that the board is considering various options for maintaining Yahoo’s independence, including an advertising partnership with Google. Whether this is a real option or just a ploy to lure Microsoft to upper its bid is hard to say, but it will certainly make Microsoft pay attention.

One important reason for Microsoft acquiring Yahoo! is Microsoft’s desperate need to get a proper search advertising platform up and running. Yahoo’s text ad system is not as good as Google (and the Yahoo!/Google alternative means that Yahoo! admits that much) but it has a customer base that is much larger than Microsoft’s and is the only major competitor to Google’s AdWords.

Google and Yahoo! joining forces in online advertising will not be good for competition.

There will probably be no other bidders for Yahoo! at a price like that, unless Google surprises us. Microsoft may go for a hostile take-over at a lower price, but that will cost it a lot of goodwill inside Yahoo!

Our guess is that they will try to accomodate the Yahoo! board at a slightly higher price than USD 31 per share. Or they may wait for Yahoo! stock prices to fall even further and to the point where USD 31 seems like a very sweet deal.

More search engine news from around the web:

A three-year study on the freshness of Web search engine databases
The best search engine in terms of up-to-dateness changes over the years and that none of the engines has an ideal solution for index freshness, a study from JIS says.

Ask.com Launches “BigNews� Social Media News Site
It’s a news-related product like Google News or Yahoo News. Except, Ask.com has put their own social media spin on it (Search Engine Journal Feb 7 2008)

Does Google Automatically Index New Blogspot and WordPress Blogs?
If you have a brand new site on Blogspot or WordPress, does it automatically get indexed in search engines? (SEO Roundtable Feb 8 2008)

What Would a Yahoo-Microsoft Merger Look Like?
Search Engine Watch has asked search marketers for their opinions about a future that includes a combined Microsoft-Yahoo search engine. (Feb 7 2008)

Is Google Really Buying Bebo And Plaxo?
A new hypothesis about Google eying to purchase bot Bebo and Plaxo is doing the round of blogs and forums. (PageTraffic Feb 9 2008)

Varying Anchor Text, Is It Good Or Bad For SEO?
You do need to vary your anchor text (PageTraffic Feb 9 2007)

AltSearchEngines’ New Forum!
AltSearhcEngines launches a forum and a conference calendar. Alas, there is a fee involved. (Feb 1 2008)

Rambler
Russian search engine Rambler (Phil Bradley Feb 8 2008)