New options for search ads
For those of you who have been following the Panama project by Yahoo you will find this to be the supposedly last piece of that new search marketing ranking model, titled Search Marketing. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Panama project, it is a new take on the way the ad service decides where on the page to place a particular ad. The difference is that it now takes into account performance of the ad versus simply who is willing to pay the most for an ad. Historically the best positions were always awarded to those advertisers who offered up the largest payment for a particular keyword. Now they are going to look at not only how much you pay but how well your ad is received. Those ads that get the most clicks will migrate to preferential spots on the page. Those with less return will be delegated to lower profit areas. This process has several advantages in that it will cause advertisers to pay more attention to the design and function of their ads, which will ultimately benefit everyone.
Fast Search and Transfer is revamping the entire idea behind publishers having control over their ads versus the companies that push the ads. The advantage here is more profit for the publisher which should ultimately mean more profit for Fast Search. Their solution isn’t a better marketing platform, but instead a while label solution that would allow publishers to manage and monetize their sites as they see fit, effectively cutting out the search engine. Granted it seems they are marketing more to enterprises than the run of the mill blog or website. Still, the idea seems sound and if it works should quickly be picked up not only by the major names but by the thousands of little guys and gals out there as well.
Only time will tell if these new ad solutions will outperform the current reigning champion, Google. I for one am all for competition and hope this helps to spread the wealth out even more. Especially if that means just a bit might come my way