The big news today is that the rumors have finally come true, and Yahoo has purchased Tumblr for 1 billion dollars.

As I detailed in my presentation about Tumblr, Tumblr is the 3rd largest blog platform next to WordPress and Blogger, and also one of the top social platforms and microblogging platforms out there. They have over 100 million users, half of which are under the age of 25, which makes Tumblr a very young demographic, one that aging Yahoo will want to reach out to if it hopes to remain relevant over the next 20 years.

So what does Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr mean for SEO?

In the short team, not much. Many industry observers are comparing Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr to Google’s purchase of YouTube, and Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer has emphasized that Tumblr will remain an independent entity apart from the flagship Yahoo site, so don’t expect Yahoo to be painting Tumblr purple or making any drastic changes anytime soon.

On the other hand, Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, noted that the number of people jumping ship from Tumblr to WordPress increased on the rumor of Yahoo’s purchase. Tumblr has already lost more than 72,000 users, and we can expect them to lose more users who aren’t confident with Yahoo’s track record of acquisitions. Overall, though, I feel the acquisition will be a net positive in terms of users, as more people hear about Tumblr for the first time due to the press its receiving.

Long term, I expect the Tumblr to continue growing in terms of users and adding more features thanks to the increased resources they now have access to. This should increase the domain authority of the subdomains on Tumblr and increase social engagement on the site as well, which should only help with using Tumblr for SEO. Best to get a head start before all the newbies jump in!