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SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) – Yahoo Inc.’s efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft Corp. have reached a dead end, prompting the Internet pioneer to hire online search leader Google Inc. to handle some of its advertising sales.

The news disclosed Thursday caused Yahoo shares to plunge 10 percent as investors abandoned hope that Microsoft would renew a nearly five-month quest to buy the Sunnyvale, California-based company.

Although a stock sell-off is never welcome news for any company, Wall Street’s disenchantment comes at a particularly bad time for Yahoo and its board of directors.

Yahoo is trying to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn, who has vowed to replace the company’s board because of the way the directors handled the Microsoft negotiations.

But Icahn has been hoping to engineer a sale to Microsoft, so some shareholders may be reluctant to support his attempted coup unless he can demonstrate that his slate of directors has a better turnaround plan than the current board.

Icahn did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The fate of Yahoo’s board is to be determined at the company’s August 1 annual meeting.

"If you are a Yahoo shareholder, you just have to be scratching your head right now," Standard and Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler said.

With Microsoft apparently out of the picture, Yahoo is turning to Google to help its chief executive, Jerry Yang, prove that he made the right decision last month when he turned down Microsoft’s takeover bid of $47.5 billion, or $33 per share. Yang asked for $37 per share, prompting Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to withdraw the oral offer.

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