Yahoo prepares publisher network
Link: Yahoo prepares publisher network
Yahoo is planning to launch a self-serve advertising service for bloggers and other small Web publishers, an area of the market currently held by Google.
While Yahoo and Google both serve major search-advertising partners such as AOL, Google has cornered the market in delivering its text-only ads to smaller content sites, including blogs.
Yahoo’s new service will be similar to Google’s, in that it will display text ads relevant to the content of specific Web pages. Advertisers will pay only when a reader clicks on their ads and will divide the fees with Yahoo.
The service will help Yahoo expand its advertising to small and medium-size publishers. Earlier this year, Yahoo released Y!Q, code that analyses the text of a Web page and generates search results based on its content. Publishers can add the code to their Web pages to automatically produce a list of related links.
Google has also strengthened its services to small publishers. In June 2003, it extended its ad services for large publishers, called AdSense, adding a self-serve, automated product specifically aimed at small sites.
Providing ads to small publishers would significantly increase Yahoo’s current advertising portfolio, which is focused on its search engine and larger Web sites. In April, Yahoo renamed its commercial search subsidiary, Overture Services, to Yahoo Search Marketing. Overture only catered to large publishers, such as The Financial Times.
