WebProNews - Panama

Google Leads Others In CPC Inflation

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:22:57 +0000

Google takes in nearly 77% of the total search advertising spend, as of Q4 2007, and raked in 97% of all ad spend increases, according to a study by Efficient Frontier. Despite Nielsen's recent report that Google search share had slightly decreased, numbers like these on the advertising revenue side could mean good things for a flagging Google stock price.

We'll know more about that when Google releases its earnings report on Thursday.

Efficient Frontier conducted its study by tracking campaigns of clients between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, covering 17 billion ad impressions and 270 million clicks on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The clients were advertisers in the Finance, Travel and Automotive sectors.

Google Leads In Search Spend and CPC Inflation

Google's share of the search spend increased by 8.6% last year, growing from 70.5% to 76.6%. ROI on Google increased by 7.5%.

That kind of dominance is a blessing and a curse for advertisers as Google's search share presents a cornered market and larger audiences, but Efficient Frontier also says Google's universal search and expanded broad match updates didn't do much to affect campaign performance.

Thanks to increased competition and a change to the AdWords algorithm in August, top positions have become costlier in terms of CPC bid prices. In fact, Google led the other two search engines in CPC inflation last year as CPC prices spiked 22%, half of which occurred in Q4 following the AdWords algorithm update.

The AdWords algorithm update did not appear to have an effect on click-through-rates, which remained steady in 2007 until a 12.5% increase in CTR in Q4 2007. Google penalizing sites with poor landing pages is thought to be a direct factor in the increased CTRs.

Despite the increased cost on Google, Efficient Frontier still names Google as the engine of choice because of the sheer volume of referrals it generates.

Yahoo ROI Up, Search Assist Kills CTR

It sounds like mixed results for Yahoo. While advertisers enjoyed a 39.4% increase in ROI since Panama was completed in February 2007, the overall ad spend on Yahoo declined by nearly 4%, leaving the company with just 17.9% of the search spend.

The ROI wasn't enough to make up for the declining volume of searches on Yahoo, which led to lesser investing in Yahoo search advertising. In addition, Yahoo Search Assist, which allows users to refine searches, possibly led to a 34% drop in CTR last year.

MSN Is King of the Molehill

The good news for MSN is that it leads the other engines in ROI and CTRs. The bad news is, hardly anybody using it, which means there's less competition affecting ROI and CTR. MSN pulled in 5% of search engine ad spending last year.

But things are looking up. Though CTRs were 50% higher on MSN than Google last year, that statistic actually declined 16.5% between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007. Efficient Frontier suggests increased competition as a reason for declining CTRs on MSN.

Hackers Crash Panama’s Assembly Web Site

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:25:00 +0000

Internet hackers brought down the Web site of Panama's National Assembly and briefly posted an American flag there, after the legislature voted in as its president a man accused of murdering a U.S. soldier.

Unnamed officials at the assembly said the site has been down since January 9, when a U.S. flag briefly appeared there. They believe the attack originated in the United States. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was elected president of Panama's legislature in September, even though he is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zac Hernandez.

The U.S. strongly opposed his candidacy and high profile U.S. congressional figures, including Sen. Hilary Clinton have promised not to ratify a pending free trade agreement unless Gonzalez steps down from his position Reuters is reporting.

The Web site went down on "Martyr's Day" in Panama, when the country remembers the deaths of about 20 people in 1964 I clashed between anti-U.S. protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone.

Yahoo Search Marketing Celebrates Wild Year

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:54:51 +0000

As Yahoo's new Panama search marketing system took over the contextual ad duties for Yahoo properties, clients of the company witnessed plenty of changes through 2007.

Yahoo's lamentable search advertising capabilities drew commentary from throughout the industry leading into 2007. It had even been suggested at times that the company should either let an outsider (ie, Google) handle contextual search ads, or sell off the search monetization side outright.

But Yahoo has stuck to its in-house development of Panama, and spent plenty of time in 2007 releasing updates and tweaking its features. The Yahoo Search Marketing blog called it a "bumper crop" of updates and enhancements.

Those updates included tools like the Campaign Tune-Up booster, custom reports, low-quality ad advisories, and assistance in writing high-quality ads.

Low ad quality had vexed both advertisers and more importantly, potential customers who were put off from clicking through ads that were not relevant to their queries. Yahoo opened a Quality Center and brought in Reggie Davis as VP to head up the Network Quality operation.

One useful little post may have been missed due to its cheeky Acro-Gnome premise. That post detailed several of the more common abbreviations found in SEM, um, search engine marketing. It's a useful post for the new marketer.

Yahoo Talks New Panama Features

Navneet Kaushal — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:16:59 +0000

TheYahoo! Panama team has been working on new methods through which advertisers can fine-tune their ad campaigns. The details of these enhancements to their service are available at the YSM blog.

Here is a brief about the new features:

Campaign Bid Tune-Up – This provides advertisers a tool for optimizing Sponsored Search campaigns. It's a self-service tool that gives you suggested keyword bids and daily spending limit. This is really ideal for folks who don't have access to or do not use Campaign Optimization.

Saved Preferences – This feature enables advertisers to move from page to page in their account without having to reset column views. Preferences will stick even after they log out and log back in. Saved preferences will work in the Campaign Summary, Campaign Detail, Ad Group Detail sections of the account.

It seems Yahoo! Panama is really on the move to further enhance their service.

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Mastering Panama / Yahoo! Search Marketing

Andy Beal — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:55:18 +0000

What with running Marketing Pilgrim, consulting, speaking, and writing my own book, you’d probably expect me to have no time to read.

Well, when Mona Elesseily asks you to take a look at her new book Mastering Panama, with the promise to teach me everything I need to know in just 87 pages–I find the time to fit it in.

Mastering Panama is a “semi-book”. Not an e-book, but not a bound paperback either. Still, it’s well presented and very easy to follow. Elesseily (I’d normally call her Mona, but Elesseily makes me sound like a professional book reviewer!) does a great job of covering ALL you need to know about Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform. Here are some of the topics covered in the book:

Drill down: new geotargeting capabilities

Understand match types and MatchDriver technology

Y!SM service tiers and certifications

Streamlined editorial review process

Improve ROI with the new quality index

Yahoo! 2010: new advertising products

Ad copy rotation: run better tests

Keyword research: Time saving tools

Click volume forecasting

If you think that sounds somewhat dry, a quick scan of some of the chapter titles will convince you otherwise. My favorite? “New Panama Features to Delight & Amaze Your Friends (…or at least yourself).”

The book really is well thought out. Novices will learn all the basics–Elesseily walks you through the new dashboard and even explains keyword research. There’s also enough stuff for any “pros”–with tips on Yahoo’s new “assist” concept and landing page advice.

The book will set you back $87–that’s a dollar per page–but hand it over to anyone that needs YSM training, and it will be the best $87 you’ll spend this year!

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Yahoo Takes Panama To Taiwan

Doug Caverly — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:00:24 +0000

Sponsored searches in Taiwan may have just gotten a bit better - Yahoo introduced the upgrade known as Panama. Unfortunately, this will once again lead us towards something resembling a geographical “Who’s on First?” routine.

Yahoo Takes Panama To Taiwan

Unless, of course, we ignore the “Panama” moniker, which is exactly what The China Post’s Dimitri Bruyas did. I admire his style, and his quotes from Hung Hsiao-ling, the general manager of Yahoo Taiwan.

“Since 2005, sponsored searches in the United States and Korea have been steadily increasing,” said Hsiao-ling. “In 2007, sponsored searches constituted 43 percent of all searches in the U.S., and 62 percent in Korea.” Bruyas points out that paid searches are only at 36 percent in Taiwan, though, and the possibility of improvement was likely a motivating factor behind the introduction of Yahoo’s upgrade.

The last place in which we saw Panama take hold was Australia; prior to that, our own David Utter covered a round of improvements, and Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing wrote, “Panama is catching up to Google AdWords in features pretty quickly.” Google, meanwhile, has been testing different homepages in various Asian markets.

Hat tip to Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker.

Beaches Tops In Web Cam Searches

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:43:42 +0000

Ah, the Web cam. So simple, so abused. But they can be used for good, and though you might assume the Internet (as in, the collective online population) uses them mostly for nefarious and seedy peeping-Tom purposes, that's not really true, not mostly.

Given, adult cams are in the top 10 in the SERPs, those back-alley neighborhoods aren't what the majority are looking for when cruising for voyeuristic fun.

For the most part, they seem to like beaches. And not topless ones, either. For the Internet, web cams are for checking out things you don't get to see every day.

I imagine people from Panama City might be interested in checking out Alaska, or those in Vegas might like to see live deer.

It's an interesting facet of human nature, I think, that we ignore the glory that is around us and seek other glories. I live amongst the natural beauty of Kentucky, but rarely see it. When I lived in Japan, I passed Mt. Fuji every day as Fuji-san sat on the horizon like some ancient guard or some subdued, placated monster. Eventually, I didn't notice it either.

At the base of Fuji was a forest called Aokigahara, or "Sea of Trees," a popular suicide destination as the magnetic field around the volcano disabled compasses, and people would go into it, basking in the symbolism of being lost and never find their way out again. It was said to be haunted by thousands of ghosts.

They should set up a Web cam there to see if it's true. Ghost cams, according to Yahoo's Erik Gunther, are the second-most sought after types of cams, right after live beach cams.

If you're thinking of setting up some kind of Web cam site, these are the top 20 things surfers are looking to escape to:

1.    live beach cams
2.    ghost cams
3.    key west cams
4.    las vegas web cams
5.    zoo cams
6.    alaska web cams
7.    myrtle beach web cams
8.    panama city beach cams
9.    live traffic street cams
10.    live deer cams
11.    hawaii web cams
12.    galveston web cams
13.    yellowstone web cams
14.    cruise cams
15.    animal cams
16.    alaska weather cams
17.    jackson hole webcams
18.    volcano cams
19.    panda cams
20.    colorado web cams

Yahoo Panama Walks Into Australia

Doug Caverly — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:29:24 +0000

This is the problem with Yahoo’s name for “Panama”: it sounds quite strange when you discuss it in relation to other countries. Nonetheless, the new ad system has found its way into Australia and New Zealand.

Panama “will allow advertisers to refine delivery to 35 regions within Australia and 16 in New Zealand and within those even to the level of individual suburbs,” according to iTWire. This represents a vast improvement over the old, “one-size-fits-all” method.

As for whether it’ll be enough for Panama to take on Google . . . opinions vary. “[I]t is uncertain whether Yahoo! will pose a significant threat to Google here,” writes The Age’s Julian Lee, who then notes that Google “has an estimated 80 per cent market share.”

Even folks with close ties to Yahoo seem cautious. “Former Yahoo! Australia & NZ managing director Cliff Rosenberg said Panama had ‘levelled the playing field’ but it was going to be hard, though not impossible, for Yahoo! to take share from Google,” Lee continues.

Still, the introduction of Panama into Australia and New Zealand at least proves that Yahoo hasn’t forgotten about the region. This is important, as Google typically seems to do a better job of paying attention; just three days ago, a “guest post” on the Official Google Blog came from Christine Knight, a Maximizer Associate for Google Australia.

Panama Sails Out With Updates

WebProNews Staff — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:12:44 +0000

Yahoo's search marketing program, aka Panama, received some adjustments that should benefit campaign managers. Yahoo has cut out the copy and paste process for moving keywords from campaign to campaign. The latest update to Yahoo Search Marketing now provides Move and Copy buttons for an easier approach to that process.

Michael Mattis also noted on the Search Marketing blog that Yahoo has streamlined the keyword selection process. Their new keyword selector tool will show up for new advertisers during the signup process, while old hands will find it when creating a new campaign or adding keywords to a group.

The help process makes suggestions for ad writers. It also shows current ads of other advertisers using the same keywords.

"In addition, these pages now offer best practices for writing the most effective Sponsored Search ads, and “ghost text” appears in the “Title” and “Description” fields to provide examples of what these fields should contain, plus a few other little goodies to explore," said Mattis.

The continual improvement of Panama has picked up some praise from respected observers. "Panama is catching up to Google AdWords in features pretty quickly," Lee Odden said of these changes on his Top Rank Blog.

Recent Yahoo Panama Upgrades

Lee Odden — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:59:43 +0000

Yahoo Panama is on the upgrade path with several new features to help advertisers streamline account management:

Move/copy keywords: You can now move and copy keywords from one ad group to another without doing the copy/paste/delete thing. On the Ad Group page under the “Campaigns” tab, you’ll now see a “Move” button which will allow you to move or copy keywords from one ad group to another ad group.” Note that there is still a 1000 keyword limit per ad group.

Streamline keyword selector tool: Yahoo now provides an estimate of the monthly searches on each keyword suggested. This provides more detailed information on the traffic that this keyword may be able to generate. As before, you can select the keywords you wish to add by clicking the box next to the suggestions and clicking “Add Keywords.”

Ad writing help guide: When creating ads, you’ll be able to preview ads that appear in search results for your selected keywords.

Panama is catching up to Google AdWords in features pretty quickly. What has your experience with Panama been so far?

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Reprise: Small Budgets Pay More With Panama

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:24:08 +0000

Among the analysis of Yahoo's new search marketing system by Reprise Media came the revelation that smaller monthly spenders have seen cost per click prices rise.

Reprise: Small Budgets Pay More With Panama

The report by Reprise found smaller Yahoo Panama clients, with budgets under $40k, experiencing an unwelcome trend. Reprise said that those clients saw CPCs increase by 5.7 percent.

This would be due to the quality-based bidding system Yahoo implemented with Panama. Revamping the paid search platform brought it more in line with how market leader Google does business. It also raised costs for smaller marketers.

Compared to Google and MSN's adCenter, Yahoo's CPCs declined from January to March 2007, while increasing at both Yahoo competitors. Reprise attributed that to the bidding change and to "more sophisticated and granular campaign structure" for Yahoo search marketing efforts.

Reprise was pleased to see click-through rates rise to match those it receives from the Google campaigns it conducts. However, a 5 percent drop in conversions from January to March tempered that good news; Reprise suggested this could be a normal variance, in which case conversions remained flat with Panama's launch.

On the campaign management side, Yahoo has some work left to do. Reprise criticized the reporting capabilities in particular, calling their fixes a "cosmetic upgrade" that is "slow and inflexible compared to Google."

Smaller clients of Panama will want to consider the warning Reprise offered regarding CPCs and managing campaigns:

Large marketers and agencies that have expertise in properly using all the campaign structure features provided are benefiting from the upgrade. Smaller marketers who either don't have the budget to properly use these features or who are not taking advantage of the hierarchical account structures will not see these campaign optimization benefits and may actually see decreases in performance because they are competing against others who have been able to increase performance.

We expect this could lead to a small boom in business for search marketing pros who can effectively navigate Panama's changes, and demonstrate that expertise to the small budget Yahoo search advertiser.

Yahoo Features Analytics, Conversion Tweaks

WebProNews Staff — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:15:39 +0000

Work on the Panama search marketing product continues at Yahoo, with some new updates announced to assist their advertising clients. Michael Mattis brings new information and a nod to the classic Star Trek episode 'The Trouble With Tribbles' with his latest post on Yahoo Search Marketing. One reminder from him: the new short description requirements have begun to rollout, enforcing a 70 character or less rule.

They have unveiled a new feature called Conversion Analytics to the search marketing platform. This will show how keywords lead to a conversion event, even if it is not a direct correlation.

"The system will show up to 30 lead events per conversion over 45 days," said Mattis. "Please note lead events will only be recorded when the user has cookies enabled." Conversion tags must be installed on the website in question.

Panama's calendar function received an update, which will show performance data in an easier to read format. That data can be viewed for custom and pre-selected date ranges as desired. Mattis also promised more updates and enhancements to Panama are in the pipeline.

Translating AdWords to Panama

Navneet Kaushal — Thu, 10 May 2007 15:18:45 +0000

Not as easy as ABC, but a little more systematic than that is the process of converting Google AdWords Campaign into Yahoo Panama.

GotAds gives a list of uncomplicated steps for those interested.

In one of Yahoo's posts, it said, "We offer a courtesy upload of up to 1500 keywords for new accounts. Bulk uploading is a feature that is only usually available to gold tier clients and above. However, we would be more than happy to convert the exported .csv file from your Google Desktop Editor utility into our format and upload the converted data into your account for you.

Simply send a support request email from within your account (via the “Customer Support” link), attach the .csv file to it, and we will handle the conversion/upload for you."

Some users claim, Panama platform does not support plurals of keywords. So far, all's been smooth.

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Do Search Marketers Need One More Ad Vendor?

Mike Moran — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:20:30 +0000

I'm constantly asked which search engines a rookie paid search advertiser should work with. Obviously, everyone should take part in Google AdWords, because Google covers half or more of all searches. Most marketers should also look at Yahoo!, which handles about one-quarter of all searches—their Panama platform has made them an even more interesting choice for ad spending.

But what about Microsoft? Or ask.com? Or MIVA? Every search marketer has a limited amount of time to spend managing campaigns, so what would cause you to look at them?

Big search marketers probably have the volume to look at many paid placement vendors, but smaller companies must be more careful. Let's look at several search vendors and see what you get out of them besides a bit more traffic:

Microsoft. The big carrot here is personalization. Search marketers can pay a premium to get customers in certain demographics (such as age or gender)—if that results in more qualified visitors for your site, then it might be worth the extra work to manage a Microsoft campaign.

Ask. The newest program has one of the best sweeteners. If you spend $5,000 a month with them, Ask provides free search marketing consulting to improve copy, click rates, and other return on investment factors. You might find that what you learn from this free consulting could be applied to ads you run on other search engines, boosting your entire campaign.

MIVA. MIVA has traditionally had a stronger presence in Europe than elsewhere, so you may consider them more strongly in certain country markets. In addition, MIVA has an interesting inline advertising option, so some advertisers may find that they benefit from a different presentation than the average contextual ad.

You'll find no end of options for the search marketer with time on your hands—except there aren't any such search marketers. We're all busy and we must pick our spots to decide what's worth our time. After you've focused on Google and Yahoo!, however, maybe these thoughts can provide you some guidance as to whether to spend your time on one more paid placement vendor.

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Yahoo Challenges Google On Analytics Front

Joe Lewis — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:24:02 +0000

Search engine marketers rely heavily on website metrics to determine what adjustments need to be made to advertising campaigns in order to increase time on site and conversion. Google has offered free analytical tools to webmasters for some time, but now site owners are starting to take notice of the new measurement tools contained within Yahoo’s Project Panama.

Yahoo Challenges Google On Analytics Front

With Google Analytics, webmasters are offered upwards of 82 distinct reports they can use to analyze just about every measurable metric under the sun. Conversely, Panama’s analytical software only offers 14 reports, but the company believes that these more adequately provide search engine marketers with the most relevant information to suit their requirements.

"Our Web analytics program was developed from the standpoint of someone trying to understand their Web site's performance, whether that be a marketer or an IT person. But our Full Analytics program doesn't show all of those reports. We have tailored the display to suit the specific needs of search engine marketers," said Paul Apodaca Director of Program Management for Yahoo Search Marketing in a News Factor article.

Despite an 11 percent drop in quarterly revenue, Yahoo is continuing to position itself as a competitor to Google in all possible avenues. The company just announced a deal with PayPal that it hopes will lure in more advertisers, which was no doubt a response to Google’s efforts to use Checkout as a tool to lure in more AdWords partners.

Analytics brings the fight to a new front, but the underlying struggle for the almighty advertising dollar is the same.

Google Analytics is free for webmasters, but the full analytical tools contained within Panama are only available to those who spend more than $6,000 per year on search engine marketing.

So even if Yahoo’s product is superior, chances are good that price will become a major sticking point for most when making the decision on which software package to implement.

Yahoo Search Drops, As Does Its Stock

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:27:29 +0000

Yahoo gave away 0.6 percent of US search engine market share in March 2007, with Google and Microsoft gaining at Yahoo's expense by comScore's numbers. Higher expenses in the first quarter led to shares of YHOO sinking after hours.

Yahoo Search Drops, As Does Its Stock

Yahoo executives have been advising observers that the impact of their new Panama search advertising system won't truly be reflected in the company's numbers right away. Net income spiraled down 11 percent to $142 million from the same quarter in 2006, according to figures announced by the company today.

Investors who had pushed shares of Yahoo up to 32.09 in trading began taking some of their enthusiasm back. At press time, Yahoo had dropped to 29.53, which makes it look like some people had hoped Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's cautionary remarks about Panama were a smokescreen.

In the search world, Yahoo's decline in the US search market per comScore's numbers saw it drop to 27.5 percent of US queries.

Google ticked upward to 48.3 percent, while Microsoft's gain nudged it to 10.9 percent. Ask moved up to 5.2, while AOL rose to 5 percent.

"Americans conducted 7.3 billion searches online in March, up 6 percent versus February and 14 percent versus March 2006," comScore said in its report.

Google Sites led the pack with 3.5 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (798 million), Ask Network (379 million), and Time Warner Network (368 million).

Google AdWords Gets Update Along w/ Outage

Andy Beal — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:57:46 +0000

When I saw that Google had announced a new look for AdWords, my heart skipped a beat as I envisioned a sexy new interface that would put Yahoo’s recently launched Panama to shame. Alas, if it weren’t for the announcement, you get when logging in to AdWords, you may not have even noticed a change.

And, before I list out the changes, it doesn’t exactly look good for Google to announce an upgrade and then also announce 4 HOURS of system maintenance for April 14th. Luckily, I’m not an active AdWords advertiser, were that not the case, I’d be somewhat pissed that I couldn’t touch my campaign for 4 hours!

On April 14, 2007, AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time due to system maintenance. Please note that your campaigns will continue to run normally during this short downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience.

And here are the changes to the AdWords interface…

Grouping by Media Type. AdWords is starting to add many new types of advertising, from text and image ads to video and beyond. This new design groups various campaign types together, so that you can see how all campaigns of a given media type are doing.

Most users will see only one grouping so far: Online Campaigns. This includes text, image, video, and mobile ads. As other types of campaigns are introduced in the future, you’ll see additional groupings added to your Campaign Summary page. This should give you a clearer view of your account, and of your performance in each kind of ad medium.

Show All Campaigns. This feature has been simplified. Pick your date range, then click the appropriate link to make your choice: Show all campaigns, all campaigns except those that have since been deleted, or only those campaigns that remain active.

Create New Campaigns. The links used to create new campaigns have moved. Formerly they all were found at the top of the Campaign Summary page. Now each link can be found in the title bar of the campaign groups. For instance, to create a new online campaign, go to the Online Campaigns group and click the link reading Create new online campaign.

No More Click-to-Call Tab. If you’ve been testing click-to-call ad campaigns, you’re used to seeing the information about those campaigns on a separate tab on the Campaign Summary page. Your data on those campaigns is now in one of the new media groups. You’ll find it just below the Online Campaigns grouping.

New Date Picker. The date filter has moved to an easy-to-find spot underneath the Campaign Summary page title. The pulldown menu can still be used to choose preset time frames like last seven days. Or, use manual entry to select any dates you like. The manual entry includes a new calendar feature to make finding dates even easier

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Viacom, Yahoo Sign Online Advertising Deal

Joe Lewis — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:41:51 +0000

A deal has been announced that will see Yahoo act as the exclusive provider of sponsored search and contextual ads to all of Viacom's web properties.

Analysts and commentators have suggested that Viacom’s billion-dollar lawsuit against Google may have been as much a contributing factor as its confidence in Yahoo’s ability to effectively monetize traffic.

It appears that Google’s loss is Yahoo’s gain, at least when it comes to dealing with Viacom.

This deal is a gigantic shot in the arm for Yahoo, who earlier this year launched Project Panama to favorable reviews, but has failed to make up any sort of significant ground in the war with Google for search share. Now Yahoo has a big-name client under it’s belt, something that it can tout when courting potential advertising partners in the future.

The announcement may be a product of necessity for Viacom rather than a victory for Yahoo. Om Malik gives his take:

Having already sued Google, Viacom had no option but to embrace Yahoo. The fact that Yahoo is not making any revenue guarantees (or so it seems from the press release) shows who had a better hand in this round of web-poker. Nevertheless, Yahoo walks away smelling a little better from this deal, designed to blunt the growing influence of Google in the contextual advertising market.

As Google’s search share continues to increase, many have been wary of Yahoo’s ability to effectively monetize web traffic over the long term if it continues to lose ground.

One also has to wonder if Yahoo was Plan B for Viacom, since they very well couldn’t sign a big deal with Google in the midst of all the copyright litigation.

Jeremy Zweig, VP of Corporate Communications at Viacom, addresses the concerns in a conversation with WebProNews, “We considered partnerships with the major players in this area, and determined that Yahoo would be the one that could provide the best user experience and monetization opportunity. The issues that you brought up are kind of peripheral, from our perspective.”

I hope I get to the point in my life where a billion-dollar copyright infringement suit is “peripheral” compared to everything else.

Even still, Viacom doesn’t come right out and deny that its ongoing litigation with Google had at least some role in its decision to go with Yahoo.

UK Yahoo Panama Migration Started w/ Full Launch In Q2

Dan Sharp — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:02:07 +0000

Account migration to Yahoos much anticipated Panama ad platform has already started in the UK. Yahoo are working with agencies & select advertisers as we speak to tighten up campaign structure to ensure the transition is smooth. The first ‘group’ of accounts will be fully migrated accross to the new platform over the next few weeks, before the initial launch.

Having worked with Andrew Buckman (EU product developer of YSM!) Jensense expects Yahoos launch date to be much sooner than many expect -

It should be available to advertisers by the beginning of May, but my instinct says that advertisers will likely see it sooner than that, in mid to late April.

So what does this mean to advertisers?

If you haven’t already, now is the time to really tighten up your campaigns, adgroups (categories), adtext & keywords as relevancy & CTR will be key to performing in the new ‘quality’ based bidding that will be introduced soon after launch.

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Yahoo Admits Problem Clicks Reach 15%

Andy Beal — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:24:59 +0000

Now that Yahoo CEO Terry Semel has gushed we expect to see “some very exciting numbers” in Q1 from Yahoo, in part due to the launch of Panama, the company has decided it’s time to tackle click fraud head-on.

Yahoo has today announced the promotion of Reggie Davis to a new position within the company - vice president of marketplace quality. Basically, his role will be to reduce the amount of click fraud on the Yahoo search network and improve relations with advertisers, or what CNET is calling a “click fraud czar.”

Along with the move comes details from Yahoo on the “discard rate” - similar to Google’s “invalid clicks” - it sees on the Yahoo Search Marketing platform.

Davis said the “discard rate,” or percentage of clicks that for some reason or another were problematic and thus the advertiser is not billed, averaged between 12 percent and 15 percent at Yahoo. The rate of fraudulent clicks, those designed only to run up charges to the advertiser, is a “subset” of that total discard rate, he said.

Assuming we’re comparing apples to apples, this puts Yahoo above Google’s “less than 10%” invalid click rate. If Yahoo wants to have any chance in catching Google, it needs a competitive platform - check - and it can’t afford to let Google convince the world they have click fraud under control, while Yahoo doesn’t. With today’s appointment, Yahoo’s somewhat following Google’s lead in their public efforts to reduce click fraud paranoia, now let’s see if they can actually bring the rate down.

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Yahoo: Getting Up Off The Mat

Joe Lewis — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:40:09 +0000

Early statistics show that Yahoo is seeing an increase in revenue due to Project Panama, the company’s next generation platform for online advertising. With revenues heading in a positive direction for a change, and analysts praising the company for recent acquisitions, is it possible that Yahoo may be making a comeback?

Six months ago, most analysts, bloggers and journalists left Yahoo for dead, stopping just short of eulogizing the Internet portal. It’s declining market share in search as well as its highly publicized debacle in attempting to buy Facebook left Yahoo with egg on its face, and led to a serious shakeup within the company’s personnel infrastructure.

Half a year later, however, Yahoo is still alive and kicking and, by some accounts, is poised for a comeback that could rival George Foreman and his unlikely knockout of Michael Moorer to capture the heavyweight title nearly thirteen years ago.

Market projections by Pike & Fischer suggests that Yahoo will bounce back in a big way this year:

In a new analysis, P&F forecasts that Yahoo! will expand its user base significantly thanks to its aggressive recruitment of top scientists and its acquisition of such innovative social-networking and video services as Bix.com and Jumpcut. In addition, P&F projects that Yahoo!'s investment insuch initiatives as its ''Project Panama'' -- designed to improve search accuracy and increase click-throughs for paid advertisers -- will narrow Google's lead in online ad sales.

"We have said from the beginning and we say it clearly right now, again, that our intention is to close the gap, and Panama is doing a great job," Yahoo CEO Terry Semel says in a CNET article.

While I’m not quite ready to strip Google of the heavyweight championship just yet, it does appear that Yahoo is serious about positioning itself as the number one contender, and is looking for a showdown to settle the matter once and for all.

Now that’s a fight I can’t wait to see.

Yahoo Is Back, Just Ask Them

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:34:22 +0000

The difficulties of 2006 have given Yahoo's top executives new hope for this year, as early indications show their new advertising system has been working as advertised.

Yahoo Is Back, Just Ask Them

Yahoo probably won't see a bottom-line impact from their Panama work until the second half of this year at the earliest. That hasn't kept CEO Terry Semel or advertising business head Susan Decker from talking up their business. At the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco, the duo told attendees that the upgrades to their advertising platform's relevance has had an impact within their Sunnyvale campus:

Panama "is now out and we are starting to smile again," said Semel, who is also Yahoo's chairman. "It has changed the mood and tempo of the company."

By emphasizing relevance in its search advertising displays, Yahoo shows ads alongside search results that more accurately reflect what the searcher wanted to find. This encourages a greater likelihood the visitor will click an ad. That makes Yahoo money. If the visitor finds that the advertiser has what he is looking for, that would lead to a conversion, which is why the advertiser has a campaign in play. Both Yahoo and the advertiser win. By emulating Google's relevance first approach, Yahoo hopes to bring some of Google's customers and their money to Panama. It hasn't happened yet, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt told a Florida media conference. Yahoo probably needs to worry more about their existing customers first than the ones they might be able to draw from their search advertising rivals. Advertisers know when they are receiving a good return on their investments. Rebuilding the confidence their current clients have should be a more rewarding experience for Yahoo to enjoy financially. ---

What Everyone Should Know About Yahoo Panama

Navneet Kaushal — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:34:17 +0000

With the end of 2006 Yahoo! officially uncovered the commonly known Panama Update. Since that time the accounts are being upgraded from the older systems to this fresh system. Not all the accounts have been upgraded, however, it is expected the task would be full and finally accomplished by the end of march, approximately. Yahoo! Panama is definitely a welcome change.

Yahoo! Panama is surely a great improvement as compared to the previous one. A higher quality of searchers is unquestionably what Yahoo! Panama aims at. The new interface and ranking algorithm may involve a little bit of adjusting on the advertisers side. Scott on SEO blog has written an article, Yahoo Panama - Pros and Cons where he explains the benefits of Yahoo! Panama update:

Previously you were stuck with only one live ad for any given phrase; now you can create multiple ads for a given ad group.

Ad approval is now instant for most ads and keywords. While there is still a “pending approval” process for some sets of phrases, in many cases your ad changes and keyword additions are now instant.

Under the new Yahoo Panama the options are much more sophisticated. For example, there is an option for blocking entire continents for your ad campaigns.

The geo targeting options have also expanded to allow for more specific ad targeting. Advertisers now have the ability to target specific states and provinces – a feature previously unavailable.

Geo-targeting is one of the most preferred feature update of Yahoo Panama. PPC Advertising blog explains this as, “works by locating a user by his/her IP address or geo-specific terms in his/her search query. It applies both to the content network and the regular search network. Advertisers can choose to target an entire market region (the US and English speaking Canada) or regions. Regional targeting is broken further into either state/province/territory targeting or targeting by DMA”

Every coin has a flipside and so does Yahoo! Panama update. Most of the issues are relatively minor and should not be a major cause of concern for advertisers on top of their campaigns. The chief flaws occurs when one account is transferred from the previous system into the newly updated system. Scott gives an insight on the flipsides of Yahoo! Panama Update.

Once your account has been transferred, the new system will not log any of the old system historical data. While this information is still accessible by logging into the old interface (which is made read only), it would certainly make more sense if stats were available under the new account login.

Another issue campaign tracking. After the switch has been made, as long as you do not change any tracking settings everything should continue to work as normal; once you adjust the analytics or tracking options, you will need to replace your tracking code with a new piece of code provided by Yahoo.

There have been some reports that after the account transition some ad titles, descriptions, and even keywords, have been disrupted.

PPC Marketing Guide says that though the ability to have multiple ads in Yahoo! Panama is the best feature, but Yahoo! has not included conversion rate into their ad statistics.
The fields Yahoo currently reports on are:

Ad Name

Editorial Status

Display Rate (%)

Quality Index

Impressions

CTR (%)

Clicks

Although you can tell which message is more appealing to your audience, has a higher click through rate, you don’t know if that message is costing you more that another message with a lower click through rate.

Yahoo! would now be able match upto Google's AdWords. Beanstalk says, “this is a great step forward for Yahoo! (at least until Google and Microsoft upgrade their engines and once again move ahead). More importantly, this is a great step for advertisers who were, until now, frustrated with the differences in capabilities between what they should do with Ad Words vs. what they could do with Yahoo! Search Marketing.”

Steps required in each campaign in Yahoo!

1.Log into your account. You will be presented with your account dashboard.

2.Click on the name of the campaign you wish to change

3.Click on “Edit Campaign” in the top right.

4.Click “Edit” at the top right of the “Campaign General Information” box.

5.Change the account name.

6.Click “Save Changes”.

7.Then click “Dashboard” to return to where you were.

Google AdWords:

1.Log into your account. You will be presented with the “All campaigns” view.

2.Click the checkbox beside the campaign you wish to rename and click “Edit Campaign”.

3.Enter a new campaign name.

4.Click “Save Changes” (also brings you back to where you were).

Not trying to project a negative image of Yahoo! Panama update, it is a job well performed. However, take a closer look! It takes seven step to perform a campaign in yahoo! And it takes Google just four. The multiple campaign edits might just frustrate the advertisers. Renaming the Google campaigns at one stance takes three step and one additional step for each campaign. But in Yahoo! These seven steps are required for each and every campaign.

The procedure might still be long but Yahoo! Panama update is attracting a lot of prospective advertisers. Getting around the new interface is a big improvement. The daily chore of managing a Yahoo! Search campaign will not be such a chore anymore.

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Pros and Cons of Yahoo Panama

Scott Van Achte — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:00:42 +0000

Near the end of 2006 Yahoo officially unveiled the new back end for Yahoo Marketing Solutions, widely referred to as the ‘Panama’ Update. Since then they have been slowly allowing the upgrading of accounts from the old into the new system. While not everyone has had a chance to have their accounts switched over, it is expected that all will be upgraded by the end of this quarter.

After several months of waiting, this new backend is a welcomed change as Yahoo finally moves into the future but as with any new system, it is not without its pros and cons.

New System Pros

The new system is certainly a great improvement over the old. While adjusting to a new interface and ranking algorithm may take a little time for advertisers, the end result will present more relevant ads to the searchers, which will ultimately mean a higher quality of visitor and should provide a better bang for one’s buck.

Previously you were stuck with only one live ad for any given phrase; now you can create multiple ads for a given ad group. With the ability to have multiple ads for each phrase opens the doors to easier testing of which ad copy is better suited for your ads and prospective clients.

Ad approval is now instant for most ads and keywords. While there is still a “pending approval” process for some sets of phrases, in many cases your ad changes and keyword additions are now instant. No longer do advertisers have to wait a number of days for their ads to go live.

With the old system, the level of geographic targeting was very limited. Under the new Yahoo Panama the options are much more sophisticated. For example, there is an option for blocking entire continents for your ad campaigns. Rather than selecting each continent/country you want to appear in, if you are only trying to avoid one specific region, you can easily block it from your campaign.

The geo targeting options have also expanded to allow for more specific ad targeting. Advertisers now have the ability to target specific states and provinces – a feature previously unavailable. Canadian advertisers were forced to advertise to the US even though they wanted ads only to appear for the Canadian market. This update now provides the option to target Canada only – a big plus for any advertisers who are only able to sell in the Canadian marketplace.

New System Cons

There are a few negative aspects that have been widely noted in many forums and by Yahoo advertisers. As with any new design and back end, it is expected that there will be some wrinkles. Most of the problems are relatively minor, and for advertisers on top of their campaigns, these should not present any major issues.

One of the downsides most discussed is the transfer of account stats from the old system to the new. Once your account has been transferred, the new system will not log any of the old system historical data. While this information is still accessible by logging into the old interface (which is made read only), it would certainly make more sense if stats were available under the new account login.

Another issue campaign tracking. After the switch has been made, as long as you do not change any tracking settings everything should continue to work as normal; once you adjust the analytics or tracking options, you will need to replace your tracking code with a new piece of code provided by Yahoo. There have been reports where after the account is upgraded, the conversion stats no longer appear and the code needs to be immediately replaced. While not everyone seems to be having this problem, it is certainly a bug worth noting. If you have not yet upgraded, or upgraded but not checked your tracking codes, it would be best to tackle this issue right away to ensure everything will work correctly.

There have been some reports that after the account transition some ad titles, descriptions, and even keywords, have been disrupted. Upon upgrading your account be sure to check all your ad copy and phrases to ensure that they are still correct or you could end up spending money on incorrect phrases, or damaged ad copy.

The system is certainly not without its flaws, but generally the interface is much cleaner and certainly more functional. While the ability to edit many more aspects of one’s account are now in place, it can be a little daunting to find the right place to make the change. Some items such as campaign and ad group settings are more difficult to find than they need to be, and require more steps than is really necessary. As an example, below I compare the steps required for the simple task of renaming a campaign for Yahoo versus Google:

Yahoo

Log into your account. You will be presented with your account dashboard.

Click on the name of the campaign you wish to change

Click on “Edit Campaign” in the top right.

Click “Edit” at the top right of the “Campaign General Information” box.

Change the account name.

Click “Save Changes”.

Then click “Dashboard” to return to where you were.

Google AdWords:

Log into your account. You will be presented with the “All campaigns” view.

Click the checkbox beside the campaign you wish to rename and click “Edit Campaign”.

Enter a new campaign name.

Click “Save Changes” (also brings you back to where you were).

Why is it that Yahoo takes 7 steps to do something that Google can do in only 4? Not to mention multiple campaigns edits. If for some reason you wanted to rename all your Google campaigns at once, it would still take only 3 main steps plus 1 step for each campaign name changed. For Yahoo you would need to repeat all 7 steps for each campaign. These same basic steps are also required for other edits such as campaign budgets, start and end dates, and to turn a campaign on or off.

This example is not really a big deal in the large scheme of things, but is simply an indication that while Panama is a large improvement, there is still much room for refinement. As Yahoo moves forward into 2007 I am sure we will see more advancements and changes to the main navigation.

Click Through Rate Increased by New Ranking Algorithm

Along with an entirely new backend system loaded with new features, Yahoo has also adjusted the way in which they rank ads. The new ranking algorithm is very reminiscent of Google AdWords, and miles away from the old bid-for-position model previously used. Under the old algorithm an advertiser could dominate the top ranking simply by having deeper pockets. Now under the new Panama algorithm to guarantee top spot for a competitive phrase, not only may you still need deep pockets, but you also need the right phrases, relevant ad text, and a quality website – giving an opportunity for top rankings to those with smaller budgets.

According to comScore there has been s significant increase in the overall click through rate of Yahoo paid ads since the introduction of the new ranking algorithm. Compared to the week ending February 4, the last day of the old system, the week ending February 11 saw a 5% increase in clicks. By February 18th the total increase in clicks was reportedly at the 9% mark; a sign that the new system is of significant value to advertisers, and of course Yahoo. Now these figures may have been skewed slightly with both Valentines Day and Presidents Day falling into that range, however, “Bank of America analyst Brian Pitz said in a research note that he expects click through rates to grow about 15 percent to 25 percent starting in the second half of the year.”

What has been specifically responsibly for the increase in traffic? While it may be too early to know for sure, the most likely reasoning is ad quality. Under the old ranking schematic it didn’t matter what your ad looked like or where you directed traffic, if you had the dollars, you had the rank. Now that there are other factors at work, the most relevant, high quality ads, take the rank, and searchers are obviously noticing the increased relevance and clicking through.

Scott’s personal take on the new system

Generally I have to say I like the new system. It makes account management easier than using the archaic system we had all grown used to. The new system is much more streamlined and clean cut compared to the old. That said, when compared to the Google AdWords, it still falls short. It’s a great first try, and within the next year or so I expect to see some more adjustments to make navigation and functionality improved. For a system with so much hype and such a long time coming, it seems less desirable than expected. Editing ad copy and URL’s is still much more cumbersome than its competitor Google, requiring more steps. The account transition could have been made smoother and items such as historic stats should have been made more easily accessible and transferred over to the new account.
Since its early days the Google AdWords system has evolved a great deal, and the same can be expected from Yahoo. Now that they have implemented a more scalable and comprehensive system, it will certainly improve as advertiser feedback is received.

One irrelevant feature, if you can call it that, is that I am very grateful for the removal of the “security code” requirement when signing into the account. While I can appreciate the reasons for having it there in the first place, these security codes that were popping up everywhere really did drive me crazy, and it is nice to see this condition being removed. What does it mean to an advertisers account? Well, really nothing, but it does put a small smile on my face.

While it is not without its short comings, this new system is a large improvement and I for one welcome it with open arms.

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Yahoo Click Throughs On The Rise

Dave Davies — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:26:08 +0000

Good news came to Yahoo! and it's advertisers today in the form of a ComScore report. For those of you who read this blog regularly or, to be more accurate, any SEO blog regularly, you'll recall that back on February 5th Yahoo! launched it's new advertising system Panama. As one could expect, the changes have been monitored closely by Yahoo!

ComScore today released their finding on the changes in click through rates on Yahoo! ads. And they are:

Week Ending 2/11/07 - 5% increase

Week Ending 2/18/07 - 9% increase

Now, these number may not seem impressive, after all - they're only single digit increases however when we consider that we're dealing with over 60 million searches per day in the US alone and that this increase takes them from a 10.1% advertising click through rate to 11.1% this reflects an additional 600,000 advertiser clicks per day. this is 219,000,000 additional click per year which is going to easily translate into many MANY millions of dollars in revenue for Yahoo!

You can read ComScore's full release here.

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Yahoo - Can it Catch Google?

Andy Beal — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:29:38 +0000

I was asked by Business Week to provide an opinion piece on Yahoo’s new search marketing platform.

As an opinion piece, I was asked to pick one side and provide supporting evidence to back up my stance. As I’ve already stated how impressed I am with Panama, I went with the positive.

I hope you’ll enjoy it and feel free to leave your counter-point here or at the article.

UPDATE: comScore just released data that shows Panama is helping Yahoo. I wish I’d known, so I could have included in the article.

ComScore also found that Yahoo’s search ads are gaining ground as a percentage of total clicks. Prior to the Panama launch, ads held 10.1 percent of clicks, which increased to 10.6 percent of total click volume in the week ending February 11 and 11.1 percent in the week ending February

It certainly backs-up my statements.

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New Ranking Model Gives Yahoo A Boost

Joe Lewis — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:15:05 +0000

Three weeks ago, Yahoo introduced its new ranking model to the search world. Armed with new ad grouping, geo-targeting, and quality score features, the platform already seems to be yielding very positive results for the company.

New Ranking Model Gives Yahoo A Boost

This release of this data is a welcome sign for Yahoo. Let’s face it; the company has been desperate for some good press for quite a while now, and comScore’s announcement could not have come at a better time.

So what exactly do the figures indicate for Yahoo?

First you have to consider the starting point of reference, which for comScore was the week ending February 4, 2007, just before Panama’s launch. The metrics firm look at the sponsored search click-through rates (the total clicks on sponsored search ads divided by total number of s

earches) for the period just before Panama, and then the next two weeks of click-through data in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the new ranking model.

As a result, comScore’s data indicates that for each of the two weeks in question (weeks ending February 11, 2007 and February 18, 2007), Yahoo experienced a noticeable surge in its click-through rates. The first week, saw a 5 percent increase, while the second showed a surge of 9 percent.

“comScore data show that the recent introduction of Yahoo!’s new search marketing ranking model is already having a positive impact on the click-through rates for Yahoo’s search advertising,” said James Lamberti, comScore senior vice president of media and search solutions.

“comScore will continue to monitor the performance of the new ranking model and plans to issue an additional analysis at the end of the first quarter.”

"While still in its early stages, any good news for Panama is good news for Yahoo! – and this early study shows plenty of good news,” added John Battelle, chairman and publisher of Federated Media and noted author.

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Yahoo's Local Ad Options At New Panama

Navneet Kaushal — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:56:53 +0000

The second part of Yahoo Local Advertising Options, Post-Panama at ClickZ has some fine tips on local search marketing. Patricia Hursh, the author of this writeup explains intricately which ad product is best for your online marketing needs.

For sponsored search Patricia recommends, "geotargeted Sponsored Search campaigns for Internet-savvy local businesses, regional firms, Web-based businesses, and national chains, franchises, and dealerships. Really, any business - local or not - wanting to present different messages or offers to searchers in various locations can benefit from Yahoo's geotargeted Sponsored Search."

However this approach is applicable only those who are ready to accept the challenges of a full brown PPC advertising campaign. The key point is that you have to keep working on the advertising solution. Hiring the services of a professionalized agency is also a good idea.

According to Patricia, Yahoo! Local Listings are chiefly designed for small and local businesses that are serving consumers in a focused area. Patricia says, "I recommend Local Listings for marketers who desire a simplified approach and appreciate the flat monthly fee. This solution eliminates the need to manage campaigns, keywords, bids, and budgets. Furthermore, the contact information and map associated with a Local Listing makes it particularly well suited for marketers wanting to make their phones ring or drive customers into their physical stores."

Further on, the best way to ensure that you are within reach of people who search on Yahoo! is by testing geotargeted Sponsored Search ads and Featured Local Listings. Another step essential to increase visibility is by migrating from Yahoo!'s Local Sponsored Search Product to either a geotargeted PPC account or a Featured Local Listing.

Finally Patricia sums up the article, "Will local search advertising ever be as well understood as newspaper or yellow page ads? It's just a matter of time. Won't it be nice when the next local business owner you meet at a cocktail party wants to discuss Yahoo Local Listings?

Search engines certainly haven't cracked the small business marketing code yet. Stay tuned."

Indeed a captivating post. Catch the complete article at Clickz

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About the Author

Nav is the founder and CEO of Page Traffic, a premier search engine company known for its assured SEO service, web design and development, copywriting and full time SEO professionals.

Navneet has wide experience in natural search engine optimization, internet marketing and PPC campaigns. He is a prolific writer and his articles can be found in the "Best Articles" section of many websites and article banks. As a search engine analyst , he has over 9 years of experience and his knowledge is in application here.

Yahoo Sheds More Light On Quality Score

Joe Lewis — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:54:33 +0000

Last week, Yahoo launched its new Panama search platform amidst much buzz throughout the blogosphere. As part of the new model, Yahoo will be implementing a scoring system to determine ad quality, which will in turn have an influence on bid prices for keywords.

We’re less than two weeks into Panama, and already Yahoo has been more forthcoming with information concerning its quality score calculation that Google was within the first two months.

In a WebmasterWorld forum post, a Yahoo representative outlines some additional information about quality score that advertises should be aware of when making use of Panama:
Remember that more than click-through rate influences the quality of an ad: The quality of an ad is determined relative to other ads displayed at the same time by both its expected performance going forward and its historical performance.

Historical performance data was not purged on February 5, but as time passes, the data generated after the launch of the new ranking model will have the strongest influence on ad quality calculations.

The time it takes to take both expected and historical performance into account to measure ad quality depends on the volume of searches related to a keyword. Keywords with lots of daily searches often generate enough data in a relatively short period of time until historical performance is a stronger factor for ad quality within that marketplace.

And no, the data used to determine ad quality is not “purged” at the beginning of a new month.
So not only will an ad be judged on its current performance, but on its overall historical performance as well. That’s handy information to have if you’re a Panama advertising partner.

I wonder if Google employs similar methodology in calculating quality score for landing pages and AdWords within its advertising platform?

Then, I wonder if they would even tell anyone if that indeed was the case.

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Yahoo Switching to Panama Platform Today

Andy Beal — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:16:21 +0000

Monday February 5th, 2007, will be a day that goes down in search engine history. At 3pm PST today, Yahoo will bring together 30 to 40 engineers and start migrating the old Overture pay-per-click platform over to the new "Panama" model.

Its future success or failure will depend on how well the new platform is received.

Thousands of advertisers, and billions of dollars in ad spending, will be watched closely, as Yahoo finally moves from the pure "highest bidder wins" model, to the "bid plus quality" model. By making this switch, Yahoo hopes to increase the average revenue per click from 2.5/3 cents to something closer to Google's 4.5/5 cents.

As successful switch could mean the difference between Yahoo's road to a comeback, or instead, further languishing behind Google - and facing a strong challenge from Microsoft's adCenter.

There's certainly a lot at stake. Not only does the new Panama platform bring a better opportunity for Yahoo to build market-share now, but as the New York Times explains, it's a solid platform that can help Yahoo grow.Yahoo says the system can be upgraded without disrupting it. It is intended to be flexible enough eventually to handle video and audio ads and to distribute ads to mobile devices. And while Yahoo gives few specifics, it says Panama will some day play a role beyond search advertising.The full roll-out of the new platform is not expected to be completed until sometime in March and Yahoo warns investors not to look for any bottom-line impact until later in the year - as advertisers get used to the new bidding system.

Still, having spent a lot of time speaking with the people behind Yahoo's new platform build, I'm very confident that Panama will be a huge success for the company. Will it see Yahoo catch Google in terms of ad revenue? Doubtful. It will, however, give them an opportunity to better monetize the advertisers they have and should help them steal a few more away from their rivals.

If you're a Yahoo employee, cross your fingers and grab your lucky rabbit's foot. Today is a big day in Yahoo's history.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world's most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.