The road to the auction for multinational search engine and technology company Yahoo! Inc (YHOO  ) has been a long one. Many analysts are considering a culmination of failures--rather than a single mistake--as responsible for Yahoo's necessary upcoming sale this year. Among notable losses were the 2002 purchase of job search engine HotJobs for $436 million (later sold at $225 million), the 2004 purchase of price-comparison site Kelkoo for nearly $600 million (later sold at $150 million), and walking away from the 2008 Redmond purchase offer for the company of $44 billion. Today, despite a substantial audience, the company's core business is negatively valued. Yahoo's poor investments were exasperated by the inability to keep up with the tremendous online advertising sales generated by giants such Google (GOOG  ), Amazon (AMZN  ), and Facebook (FB  ), most specifically due to growing trends such as mobile device and social networking app use. As revenue for these companies via mobile advertising generates figures in the billions each quarter, Yahoo has only managed to earn $250 million in the past quarter.

CEO Marissa Mayer has attempted to expand mobile and video advertising for the company and invest in mobile products, however, revenue has still fallen by 11% this past year. For 2016, she has announced large scale strategic reductions including cutting jobs by 15% and selling assets like real estate, patents, and digital magazines which Yahoo currently owns. In the realm of social networking, Mayer bought the microblogging website Tumblr for $1 billion three years ago, which appeared promising for audience expansion. However, net revenue generation has been negligible. Many in the media are blaming Mayer for Yahoo's failures, while others are sympathetic of the "bad hand" the company has been dealt. Unfortunately, security threats have been targeted at Mayer in recent months, and Yahoo disclosed that it has had to spend $544,061 on Mayer's security alone.

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Bidding for Yahoo is set to take place on June 6th, with its stake in Chinese company Alibaba (BABA  ) and ownership of technology advertising tools as the most appealing assets to prospective investors. While around 40 bidders initially showed interest at the announcement of sale earlier this year, many analysts are predicting Verizon Communications (VZ  ) to be the most serious bidder. Reportedly, Verizon is working with Bank of America (BAC  ) to craft an appealing offer--Bank of America has formerly served as an advisor to Yahoo and therefore its wealth of knowledge on the company can provide a competitive edge. Other offers will likely come from the private equity firms of Bain Capital, TPG Capital, Vista Equity Partners, and a consortium backed by powerful individuals including Warren Buffet and Dan Gilbert. AT&T (T  ) also recently joined the bidding war, which may prove to be Verizon's biggest competitor. Theoretically, competition may drive prices up favorably for Yahoo, though predictions are currently ranging as low a $2 billion to as high as $8 billion. In one week we will be closer to knowing the fate of Yahoo--a once impressive search engine powerhouse that fell into the shadows of it's competition.