Microsoft Corp. still isn’t interested in buying Yahoo Inc., even after Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang said Wednesday that the Internet company is willing to sell.

There are no talks between the companies, a Microsoft spokesperson said Thursday. The software maker stood by a statement last month that it “has no interest in acquiring Yahoo.”

Yang made the comments after Google Inc. backed out of a proposed online-advertising partnership, narrowing his options for turning around Yahoo. The remarks fueled investor speculation that Microsoft might bid for all or part of Yahoo, pushing the Internet company’s shares up as much as 7 percent Thursday as the broader market declined.

“To this day, I would say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo,” Yang said Wednesday at a conference in San Francisco. “I don’t think that is a bad idea at all.”

Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams reiterated Yang’s remarks Thursday. He declined to comment on whether Yahoo would seek to start new negotiations.

“We’re open to talking to them,” Williams said. “We still believe acquiring Yahoo is the best option for Microsoft.”

Yang rejected unsolicited bids from Microsoft of as much as $47.5 billion, or $33 a share, earlier this year. Yahoo stock traded as low as $11.25 last week.

Yahoo sought the partnership with Google as a way to bolster sales. Yahoo’s revenue growth, excluding sales shared with partners, slowed to 3 percent last quarter, down from 14 percent a year earlier. Yang faced threats of a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn and dissatisfaction from investors, who withheld about one-third of their votes for Yang’s re-election to the board in August.

Besides a deal with Microsoft, Yahoo’s other option is to pursue an acquisition of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL. Buying AOL won’t give Yahoo the same payoff as the agreement with Google, said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.

Yang said Wednesday that Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo is “open to everything.”

“With Microsoft, we’ve been pretty clear: If they want to buy the whole company, we’re around for that,” Yang said. “They don’t seem interested.”

Microsoft dropped $1.20 to close at $20.88 in Nasdaq stock market trading. The shares have declined 41 percent this year. Yahoo, down 40 percent this year, rose 4 cents to $13.96.