Yahoo to launch blog ad network

Yahoo is planning to launch on Wednesday an ad network for small Web publishers intended to strengthen its hand against rival Google, a source familiar with the plan told CNET News.com.

As previously reported, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has been working for months on a self-serve advertising service tailored to bloggers and other small Web publishers, a move that homes in on Google's territory.

While Yahoo and Google already go head-to-head serving major search-advertising partners such as America Online, Google has largely enjoyed a monopoly delivering its signature text-only ads to smaller content sites, including blogs.

Now Yahoo will play to that constituency and challenge Google's pricing power in one of the fastest-growing online mediums: blogging. Like Google's service, Yahoo's self-serve product will display text ads deemed relevant to the content of specific Web pages. Advertisers pay only when a reader clicks on their ads. Yahoo and publishers will split the fees.

Yahoo declined to comment for the story.

The service will undoubtedly turn up the heat in Yahoo and Google's ongoing rivalry to dominate Web search. It will also help Yahoo's push to expand its advertising reach to small and medium-size publishers.

Laying the groundwork in this area earlier this year, Yahoo released Y!Q, code that analyzes the text of a Web page and shows search results based on its content. Publishers can add the code to their Web pages to automatically generate a list of related links.

Tapping small publishers offers a promising growth path, given Google's earlier efforts in this niche.

In June 2003, Google expanded its ad services for large publishers, dubbed AdSense, adding a self-serve, automated product specifically aimed at small sites. As opposed to search-related ads, which are triggered by keywords entered into its search engine query bar, AdSense ads are targeted to the content of a page and its meaning. For example, a news story about a soccer match might display a sponsored link for soccer gear.

Google does not break out AdSense sales but includes them in a broader category that encompasses all syndicated search revenue. Collectively, those businesses made up 46 percent, or $630 million, of Google's $1.38 billion in revenue in the second quarater of 2005.

Bringing ads to small publishers would expand Yahoo's current advertising portfolio, which caters to its search engine and larger Web sites.

In this vein, Yahoo's service will help the company expand its brand name to small sites. In April, Yahoo formally renamed its commercial search subsidiary, Overture Services, to Yahoo Search Marketing. Overture had served ads to publisher Web pages since 2003, in a program called Content Match, but it only catered to large publishers, such as The Financial Times.

Yahoo's new service will differ from Google in that it will add human editorial judgment to the selection of ads for content pages. In comparison, Google's service relies on technology.

Here is how I want Interenet ads to work!

Computers are smart things are they not? What advertisers must capitalize on is the interactive nature of computer systems. We don't want our systems to be bogged down with JS (jack Sh..) ads for things we don't ever want! But we like free stuff that these ads help provide. So what do we do? Simple Let's say I am thinking of buying new car tires in the near future! So I notify my ISP of the fact. Give them my tire information and the price range I am looking to spend on them! The ISP provider then bids this out to all known tire advertisers new and used for a fee allows them a spot on the ISP web page. All I see now are ads relating to what I want to buy nothing else! I may have a few of these and perhaps it would be good to have a public file that all the web pages I visit are able to see what I am hot for and have banner ads catering to only those things I am interested in buying! Now that will blow the roof of the deal!

[richtestani]

Are you kidding me??

That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever read.

Not just for Bloggers

People always write that adsense is a bloggers advertising channel. But it is not - it is used by almost all large publishers as well and I think that Google have achieved real lock-on with a wide range of advertisers and publishers that give them and not yahoo the real benefit of a network effect

[smjm1982]

Yahoo can win big if they're willing to take a slightly different approach

One of the problems with blogging advertising search engines and the internet is the inability to give everyone equal instant exposure. What Yahoo should do, I feel, is instead of the ole blog and search for it approach with everyone trying to ping themselves to the top would be as follows.

People would put their blog out & put the category that best describes it.
Yahoo would display by date only the 1st line of the title, nothing else of the blog so that as many blogs as possible could be seen with ease. To avoid spamming, a blog can only be updated and moved to the top of the list once a week.
Once the latest version of a blog is seen, (maybe a cookie can be placed in the computer), it would be moved to the bottom of the list for that viewer so he/she sees the unseen.
A "display all in this category" link will allow the viewer to see a straight down list of the 1st line of every blog in the category up to 100 at a time.
Place a rotating flash scroller at the top to arbitrarily display every blog and after a topic is selected, display as well but for blogs that are under that category. Now, continuous clickable flash display of blog titles gives a second way for bloggers to reach potential readers.
Please also put this scroller on the front page (www.yahoo.com) so people see it instantly when they come on.
Finally, for yahoo's benefit, every blog that is read would carry advertisement unless the blogger sign's up for a premium pay version of it so yahoo can get something back for this.

The key to success here is to be able to create a highly noticeable engine that makes it easy to find all the blogs fairly. There are many people out there with questions, help & support, criticism, etc. who just want to be heard & done right, they will flock to Yahoo knowing there is a good bet they will be.

[garbagebox]

I'd prefer <a href=http://blogertizeworld.com>Blog advertising network</a> Good for nebiew bloggers