SAN FRANCISCO — Goodbye, Yahoo. Hello, Oath.

Verizon Communications, the wireless powerhouse that was a cluster of local phone companies when two Stanford University graduate students began compiling the Yahoo web directory in 1994, completed its purchase on Tuesday of Yahoo’s internet business for $4.48 billion.

Yahoo, which once had a market value of $125 billion, will be combined with AOL, another faded web pioneer it bought in 2015, into a new division of Verizon called Oath.

Oath, headed by AOL’s chief executive, Tim Armstrong, will have about 1.3 billion monthly users, and Verizon hopes to use its range of content and new forms of advertising to attract more viewers and marketers as it competes against Google and Facebook. The company also intends to cut costs, with plans to lay off about 2,100 people, or about 15 percent of Oath’s staff.

Oath’s strategy will be to place the same content — whether articles, videos or ads — in multiple locations to reach the widest possible audience, said Marni Walden, the Verizon executive vice president who oversees its global media businesses.