In a move that caused a great deal of commotion in the search
engine optimization world this week, Yahoo has now partnered
with Overture (formerly Goto.com) to provide 3 sponsored
listings at the top of a search results page and 2 sponsored
listings at the bottom of each search results page.

This was announced Tuesday November 13 and was implemented
that Thursday. The first results page of a search gives position
1,2 and 3 from Overture and results 4 and 5 are at the bottom of
the results page. This is continued as you continue to click
through Yahoo results pages. The second Yahoo results page
gives you listing numbers 6,7 and 8 at the top and listing
numbers 9 and 10 at the bottom. This pattern appears to continue
throughout the Yahoo listings. However, if there are more listings
in Yahoo than there are the number of sponsored listings in
Overture, then the cycle repeats itself. The sponsored listings
appear in both the main directory listings and the secondary
listings produced by Google.

As an example, doing a search for the phrase 'hammock
chairs' in the Web Pages section of Yahoo (these are the
secondary results produced by Google), there are only 25
paid advertisers on Overture as of today. But there are
5630 listing in the Google-driven listings of Yahoo. There are
5 Overture listings for every 20 Yahoo listings. So at listing
101-120 it cycles back to paid listings 1 through 5 from
Overture. You can see this example by going here:
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=hammock+chairs&hc=0&hs=22

This is not typically how sponsored listings have worked
with other Overture partners such as AOL Search and Netscape
Search. The standard approach is to promote the first 2, 3 or
4 listings from Overture and discard the rest. The consequence
of this is there have been major bidding wars for these
positions.

On the negative front, consumer awareness groups, small
business owners and search engine marketers are less than
thrilled with this current trend. The arguments range from
misleading searchers, to stealing the web away from businesses
with small budgets, to just being plain lousy results.

The proponents suggest this is the beginning of a new
viable business model for search engines. The free ride
is over.

Either way, the deal between Yahoo and Overture expires in
April, states an Associated Press article. The article goes on
to say, this deal... "can serve as a short-term solution for Yahoo!
until it can develop the sales force and technical capability
to offer the paid search listings itself." Full article
can be found here:
http://www.nando.net echnology/story/169861p-1634746c.html



About the Author
Sage Lewis, founder and president of the web site
promotion firm SageRock.com. He has been employed as an Internet
Strategist and design/promotion consultant for 5 years. To
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