Microsoft gave up their bid for Yahoo and now Yahoo is looking to Google to shore up their search operations. Of course such an alliance might just create a near monopoly in the search marketing arena, so big advertisers are starting to worry about just how high ad rates will go up.

Advertisers are most concerned about whether the deal, between the two biggest sellers of search advertising, may affect the pricing of ads that appear alongside search results, a science in which online marketers invest heavily. The prices they pay Google for ads that are linked to searches for various search terms are established through an auction process.

While Google doesn’t set prices manually, some experts said prices might rise for keywords in situations where Yahoo chooses to blend in Google ads, as more advertisers compete for those terms. That is more likely to happen for terms where Yahoo has fewer interested advertisers such as “dry cleaners Fresno” or “small dog breeds.”

Of course it’s possible that keywords could continue their rise. This “merger” of search operations is bound to have a monster impact, since it affects the two largest destinations on the Web. In fact, an old school “consolidation” of large rivals will certainly make competition harder for rivals, as it has since the days of J.P. Morgan.

The bigger question for us publisher is whether the higher costs for ads will “trickle down” into our pockets.