Feb
Yahoo Tries to Counter Google AdWords
On Tuesday, Feb. 6, Yahoo launched its new Panama sponsored search program, which will take until March to completely roll out.
From what I could discern from various reports, both written and video, Panama is pretty much a copycat of Google AdWords, though the company is billing it as a step above and challenging others to match its components.
Now, from what I learned, these components include a tool for predicting clicks based on amount bid for the keyword and another tool to allow keyword inclusion in the ads themselves. On the first tool, if you’re bidding on widgets at $1 a hit, for instance, the mechanism will show X number of clicks at that amount. Move over to $2 and the results change. On the second tool, when you write your sponsored search ads, you can include a tag to substitute the keyword searched for within the text of your ad, just as Google allows now.
For instance, if you’re selling televisions and someone types in “Plasma TV,” using this function your ad might read, “Searching for a Plasma TV….” Or LCD, etc. The one-up over Google here is that Panama allows abbreviations whereas Google defaults to the base ad if the keyword is too long to fit.
Now, for the piece de resistance, Panama exactly copies Google’s quality component. In other words, even though you bid the highest on a keyword, your ad may not be the first displayed in sponsored searches if Yahoo determines another site to be of higher quality (reminisicent of Google PageRank). This is the anti-spamming feature that Google pioneered. Genuine sites with genuine contact rank first and pay less.
(This is the page at Yahoo that explains Panama and how to use it.)
As for MSN, that company responded to Panama by saying both Google and Yahoo need to catch up to its AdCenter, but I haven’t seen anything special about MSN’s sponsored ad program.
In short, Google remains the 900-pound gorilla and will no doubt roll out vast improvements shortly to trump everyone.
