Yahoo Partners with Overture

• Nov. 15, 2001

Tuesday saw the announcement of what is likely the most important deal that Overture (formerly Goto) has made to date. As of Thursday, Nov. 15, Yahoo!, the most popular search portal on the internet, will begin to display Overture results as a part of its search results. For those of you unfamiliar with Overture/Goto, it is one of the few search services still able to actually turn a profit, which it does by auctioning off rankings for popular keywords. The advantages of the deal are that it provides Overture with greater sales clout (due to its substantial increase in audience) while providing Yahoo with a much needed alternate revenue source.

The original press release regarding this matter, issued by Yahoo! News on Tuesday, reported that the top five Overture matches for a search term would be displayed on Yahoo. In performing a search myself this afternoon, I noticed that only the top three Overture results were displayed. This is very much in line with the format used by other Overtures partners, such as Alta Vista, AOL, and MSN. Also following the traditional Overture pattern, the paid listings are displayed quite prominently below Yahoo's category matches, and above the traditional Yahoo web site matches. It remains to be seen whether this new section in the search results will capture most of the visitors who in the past would have followed a link from Yahoo's Google-powered website matches; it is possible that the heading of 'Sponsor Matches' will be a deterrent.

This partnership is set to expire in April, meaning that it may be seen by Yahoo merely as a temporary cash-flow solution. In the meantime, bidding for top three rankings for for popular search terms is sure to intensify at Overture, helping the company maintain and likely enhance its status as the final remaining profitable search engine.

Related Links:
Yahoo to Add Paid Search Listings

Darren Downey
darren@searchengineposition.com