Fast And Yahoo Renew Their Search Technology

Fast And Yahoo Renew Their Search Technology

The two companies independently revised their core business offerings in hopes of slowing down the Google juggernaut.

Fast Search & Transfer and Yahoo rolled out new search advertising platforms on Monday, each hoping to find the answer to Google.

Yahoo introduced the final piece of its Panama project, a new search marketing ranking model that takes ad performance into account when calculating where an ad will be placed on a page.
Previously, Yahoo awarded the best page position to the advertiser willing to pay the most for a given search keyword. But as Google's recent financial filings have shown, ads that not only pay well but play well -- get lots of clicks, in other words -- return better results for everyone.
As Tim Cadogan, Yahoo's VP of search marketing put it, encouraging advertisers to focus on the quality of their ads delivers a better search experience for customers.

However, as Fast sees it, publishers would do better with a search experience that doesn't involve handing over half their revenue to Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo. To help publishers profit (and to drive adoption for its enterprise search platform), Fast has announced Fast AdMomentum, a white-label contextual advertising system that lets publishers manage and monetize search advertising on their sites without a search engine partner.

The goal of Fast AdMomentum, says Perry Solomon, VP and general manager of media solutions for Fast, is "to allow publishers to take control of contextual ads rather than outsourcing them to third-party providers."

AdMomentum allows sites to sell ads locally or nationally through a self-service system that's similar in concept to Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing. Solomon says Fast's new system will enable publishers to develop business intelligence applications to extend search data "beyond the search box."

Yahoo Buys Community Site MyBlogLog

Yahoo Buys Community Site MyBlogLog

MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

Yahoo has bought MyBlogLog, a Web site that builds online communities around the blogs people like to read. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition, announced Jan. 8, fits Yahoo's strategy to keep its global audience of half a billion people on its Web properties longer by engaging them in social activities. MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

"If blogging was originally about building a community and having a conversation with people in that community, then MyBlogLog provides the missing link that makes those connections more real," Chad Dickerson, senior director of Yahoo Developer Network, said in a company blog announcing the deal.

MyBlogLog, founded in 2005, is Yahoo's latest purchase in a string of acquisitions of sites offering social networking, including Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Upcoming.
Besides community features, MyBlogLog also offers analytics that provide some insight about what pages are being visited. Bloggers, for example, could use the feature to post the top five most-clicked links.

Yahoo didn't plan to make any immediate changes to the Web site or branding. MyBlogLog has five employees led by Chief Executive Scott Rafer and founders Eric Marcoullier and Todd Sampson. Workers and management would become a part of the Yahoo Developer Network Group, Dickerson said.

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share

Microsoft saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5%, despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market.

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share Microsoft saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5%, despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market. By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek January 16, 2007 03:00 PM Google and Yahoo continue to increase their share of the online U.S. search market share at the expense of competing search engines.

Last December, Google sites fielded 47.4% of U.S. search queries, a 0.4 percentage point rise from November 2006, according to comScore Networks, an Internet metrics company. Yahoo sites in December saw 28.5% of U.S. search queries, a 0.3 percentage point increase from the previous month. This is particularly good news for Yahoo, which in December opened its upgraded Panama search marketing platform to new advertisers.

A Yahoo spokesperson wasn't immediately available for comment. It's not so encouraging for Microsoft, which saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5% despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market. Previous months have seen a similar decline from Microsoft, according to figures published by comScore, HitWise, and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Whether the release of Microsoft Vista will reverse this trend remains to be seen. Even worse perhaps for Microsoft is that comScore's numbers seem to underestimate the extent of Google's dominance. Using statistics supplied by Hitwise, another Internet metrics firm, Google captured 63.15% of U.S. searches in December. Yahoo, MSN/Live.com, and Ask had 21.62%, 9.46%, and 3.72% of the U.S. search market, respectively.

At InformationWeek.com last December, Google's share of search engine referrals -- a related but not identical figure to total searches performed -- was even larger. Google.com was the source of 63.7% of search engine referrals to our site, and other Google properties from Canada, India, and the U.K. accounted for an additional 9.4% of search referrals. Yahoo was the source of 15.5% of searches that brought users to our site. MSN brought in 1.9% of our visitors, while Live.com brought in 0.7%.

Yahoo To Debut Improved Search Ad Ranking Model Next Month

Yahoo To Debut Improved Search Ad Ranking Model Next Month

Ad quality -- how effectively the ad elicits consumer interest -- will be considered when determining where ads are placed on search results pages.

Yahoo plans to roll out its new search marketing ranking model on Feb. 5, CEO Terry Semel announced during the company's earnings conference call on Tuesday.

What's new? Ad quality -- how effectively the ad elicits consumer interest -- will be considered when determining where ads are placed on search results pages, in addition to search keyword bid price. In terms of ad placement, higher is generally better. Yahoo hopes this will make its ads more relevant to users, resulting in higher ad revenue for the company.

Google has used ad quality or ad performance as a metric in its online ad system, a fact that's widely seen as a major reason why Google's ad revenue has exceeded Yahoo's in recent years. When ads that generate little interest are monitored and automatically replaced by more popular ones, more people click on the ads, more products get sold, and the search advertising company makes more money.

Yahoo expects to see the financial impact of its recently upgraded search advertising platform and its improved search marketing ranking system toward the end of the second quarter of the year.

Yahoo To Launch 100 Branded Entertainment Sites

Yahoo To Launch 100 Branded Entertainment Sites

The portal plans to gather a brand-loyal audience in a single site this year where consumers can entertain themselves and advertisers can thrive.

Yahoo has embarked on a new ad strategy that will wrap all its content and social networking tools around a single entertainment brand that the portal hopes will attract a passionate audience for advertisers.

Called Brand Universe, the initiative involves launching by the end of the year 100 separate Web sites that take information and services scattered throughout the portal. It then brings them together and funnels them into one branded place. "What we haven't done up until now is to aggregate all of the information and services into one location to have them more easily connect to each other in a social context," Sean Atkins, head of programming and development for entertainment and games at Yahoo, said.

The idea is to gather a brand-loyal audience in a single site where they can entertain themselves, while also becoming an easy target for advertisers. The strategy is similar to how marketers buy time in the offline world around a particular TV show. On the Web, however, Yahoo can use its massive data-gathering system that's based on visitor behavior to find the people advertisers want to reach, "We can speak to a particular audience," Atkins said. In general, the new sites will target people 13 to 34 years old, a demographic sweet spot for many marketers.

Yahoo's performance has recently lagged in the online advertising market, particular in the area of contextual ads delivered around search results. In addressing investor concerns, the company has rolled out a new ad platform called "Project Panama." In addition, Yahoo plans to launch this month a new system for determining placement of ads on search result pages to offer more relevant ads to visitors.

Charlene Li, analyst for Forrester Research, said Brand Universe appears to be a good idea from a money perspective. "Lots of advertising dollars flow to brands," Li said. The question, however, will be whether Yahoo can build the audience. "It's a good idea from an advertising perspective, but how are you going to get visitors there."

To create buzz, and keep eyeballs at the sites, Yahoo is hoping to build an online community around the brands by giving people the ability to chat with each other, share photos and bookmarks, and do any other social activity Yahoo currently offers.

Yahoo has already created a test bed site around the Nintendo Wii video game console. By the end of the first half of the year, Yahoo said it plans to launch six more, one centered on the children book character Harry Potter as well as the video games Halo and The Sims, the television shows Lost and The Office, and the Transformers toy line. The remaining 100 sites are scheduled to launch in the second half of the year, Atkins said. He declined to name any of the upcoming brands.

Yahoo doesn't believe it needs to get the permission of the brands' owners to build the sites. The portal, however, is ready to partner with any of those companies, and would pull the plug on any site, if the brand creator objected. Atkins, however, said no company has objected to Yahoo's use of their brand yet.

Atkins believes the initiative will benefit Yahoo's audience through entertainment, benefit advertisers by providing a target audience, and benefit brand creators by giving them a chance to build loyalty with their audience. "It's a win, win," Akins said.

Yahoo Sees Better Results With New Ad Platform

Yahoo Sees Better Results With New Ad Platform

Project Panama's success is critical in Yahoo's effort to boost revenue and recapture market share from Google.

Yahoo's new search advertising system appears to be working. Since the introduction of Yahoo's new ad ranking model on February 5, the second phrase in the rollout of the company's Project Panama ad platform upgrade, Yahoo sites have seen better sponsored search click-through rates.

During the week ending February 11, 2007, the click-through rate for Yahoo-sponsored search ads rose 5% over the previous week, according to Internet metrics company comScore Networks. During the week ending February 18, 2007, the click-through rate showed rise of 9% over the baseline week of February 4, 2007.

"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, in a statement.

Project Panama's success is critical in Yahoo's effort to boost revenue and recapture search market share from Google.

Yahoo also saw more clicks directed at sponsored search ads, which generate more revenue than algorithmically generated ones. Sponsored clicks represented 10.6% and 11.1% of total click volume in the weeks ending February 11 and February 18, respectively, up from 10.1% during the week of February 4, according to comScore.

Last month, during a conference call detailing Yahoo's Q4 2006 revenue, CEO Terry Semel predicted that Yahoo would see the revenue impact of Project Panama in the second quarter of the year.