February 08 2007

Yahoo ads relevance to search

Yahoo launched its 'Panama' search marketing ranking model in the US on Monday (5 February), and plans to roll it out to other sites during the second quarter.

The new model will rank paid search ads by quality as well as by bid price, rather than the previous model which was based only on the amount bid - the more money bid, the higher the ranking.

Now, "the quality of an ad will be determined by its historical performance in the new system and its expected performance relative to other ads displayed at the same time," said Yahoo. "Ads of higher quality will generally receive better placement on the results page. As a result, Yahoo! will be able to provide a more relevant search experience to users, more valuable customer leads to advertisers, and additional opportunities to its distribution partners."

It has the power to "unlock the full potential of Yahoo!'s search marketing network," said Terry Semel, Chief Executive Officer, Yahoo! Inc. (It will also enable Yahoo to start trying to close the gap with Google.)

As E-consultancy reports, some users have initially reported small uplifts in click quality.

Emma Herrod