Is it too early to expect a Panama review from Tom Hale, Evan Roberts or Al Scilitani? Probably 
As Andy Beal reports:
“At 3pm PST today, Yahoo will bring together 30 to 40 engineers and start migrating the old Overture pay-per-click platform over to the new ‘Panama’ model.”
Yahoo’s paid search blog should be a decent source of info too 
If you’d like to dig in from a more engineering, patent-speak perspective for a glimpse at what’s coming check out Bill Slawski’s 13 New Yahoo Search Marketing Patent Applications.
From Yahoo’s perspective this is big news - their flagging performance has investors worried and many folks suggest that Panama will make or break their 2007… and determine if they’re Google’s competition or Microsoft’s.
From the marketer’s perspective it’s a whole new experience, especially with the addition of the click performance measurement. Yup, Yahoo will no longer allow you to buy your way to the top.
This should result in an all around better experience for users - and keep reading SMSblog for how it affects marketers
How else will Yahoo grow its profits? Loren Baker reports that Yahoo’s Building 100 Social Media Powered Entertainment Sites. With the power of their network it won’t take long to build each one to a significant size… And this could be the first instance -after Answers- of Yahoo really trying to build some social media projects instead of just buying them.
If you’re an affiliate marketer wondering when to start using paid search ShoeMoney has an interesting thought. His advice, taken from the post How To Choose A CPA Affiliate & My 2006 Regrets is”
“My approach is to build organic traffic to a niche and test different affiliates. Then when I find something that works I will put a lot of PPC money behind it.”
So there you have it folks, Yahoo Rising - I’ll be on the watch for good Panama reviews and if you have initial reactions please post them in the comments.
Posted on February 5, 2007
