Microsoft is motoring down a new path en-route to increased search share thanks to an extended pay per click advertising and search deal with social networking site, Facebook. More about MSN's Facebook PPC Ad Plan

The deal enables Microsoft to tap into millions of search users, positioning MSN Live Search and its associated pay per click ads conveniently at the fingertips of the Facebook masses.

Microsoft already has a multi-million dollar stake in the social network, and inked a new deal late last year to roll a junior advert deal out globally. With its talks with Yahoo at a stalemate and Google still dominant in the percentage of internet searches served and the runaway leader in revenue from pay per click and content advertising, Microsfoft’s closer relationship with social networkers could be a savvy move towards a greater market presence.

The deal presently means that MSN will serve ads on the US Facebook site but could be trialled in other parts of the network if successful.

Facebook has an estimated 29 million users in the US – potent stuff for Microsoft which served just 9.2 % of all internet search queries in June, compared with yahoo’s 20.9% and Google’s stronghold on 61.5% of search queries according to data from monitoring firm ComScore.