Reuters is running a story on Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and how happy he is over the implementation of the new Yahoo Search Marketing ‘Panama’ platform. According to Reuters, Semel recently spoke at an AdAge conference saying that Yahoo will be showing some “very exciting numbers” in its Q1 2007 earnings report.
Panama’s new ranking technology was launched on February 5th and more changes to the system which should benefit Yahoo, its Search Marketing division, and its Yahoo Publisher Network division are coming and expected to take place worldwide.
Eluding to Yahoo’s competition with the Google Juggernaut, Semel added “We have said from the beginning and we say it clearly right now, again, that our intention is to close the gap and Panama is doing a great job.”
“I’m totally all smiles,” Semel added. “We are very excited and very happy and I’m smiling broadly.”
Yahoo advertising now serves the most relevant and high quality link advertisements in search results and contextually across their Yahoo network. Formerly, Yahoo was serving the ads of the highest bidders first in the old Overture interface, even if those ads were not of the highest quality.
Last month, a comScore Networks report showed Panama had increased the number of people who click on links that pay Yahoo.
The report showed that the number of Yahoo search users who clicked on ads — known as the click-through rate — rose 5 percent in the first week after the new system’s debut and 9 percent in the second week.
