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Yahoo! Overture Out. API in. Yahoo merges search services and allows development
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.
March 1, 2005.
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Yahoo will be killing the Overture brand name early in the second quarter
as it moves to merge all its search services under the same banner. Yahoo
also announced the beta version of the Yahoo Developer Network, an Application
Program Interface (API) allowing search marketers and software developers
to build Yahoo into search related tools they use or create.
Soon to be known as Yahoo! Search Marketing Services, (or likely, Yahoo
for short), the re-branding announcement brings Yahoo's advertising and
search divisions together under the same name. The opening of Yahoo Developer
Network signifies Yahoo's commitment to competing with Google by allowing
software developers and search marketers the ability to build timesaving
tools around the Yahoo! Search Marketing Service. The announcements coincide
with Yahoo's tenth birthday and day two of the mammoth Search Engine Strategies
Conference currently underway in New York City.
Overture was the original pay per click search tool when it launched in
June 1998 under the name GoTo.com. After hiring Ted Meisel as president
of Overture later that year, the company successfully marketed the phrase “pay-for-performance” sparking
the genesis of today's powerful contextual distribution business model.
The company thrived over the next few years, changing its name in late 2001,
weeks before announcing its first partnership with Yahoo in November. After
a year of rapid growth in 2002, Overture acquired Alta Vista and the search
unit of FAST, AlltheWeb in February 2003. In early October 2003, Yahoo purchased
Overture and its stable of search technologies, reclaiming its role as a
serious contender in the business of search.
Yahoo will be phasing out the name Overture early in the next quarter in
the US. After the re-branding effort is complete in the States, it will
move to re-brand in international markets with the exception of Japan and
South Korea where the Overture name will be maintained.
Advertisers should not see any major changes in policy stemming from this
move. It is being done mostly to alleviate confusion between the various
brands owned by Yahoo!, and to allow for better internal coordination between
product units. If anything, advertisers and search marketers will save time
as Yahoo's core services will be accessible from the same page.
Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions will offer the following services in
one suite:
- Sponsored Search Listings, the flagship search advertising product
- Content
Match ™, Yahoo!'s contextual advertising listings
- Local Match™,
Yahoo!'s local sponsored search offering
- Site Match™ Self Serve and
Site Match Xchange™, Yahoo!'s search
URL submission products
- Yahoo! Product Submit™, the Yahoo! Shopping
URL submission program
- Yahoo! Express™, the Yahoo! Directory URL
submission program
- Marketing Console™, which enables advertisers
to track campaign performance across multiple online channels
- Search
Optimizer™, which allows advertisers to improve their campaign
performance and reduce the amount of time spent managing their listings
"Our mission is to be essential to marketers of all types around the world,” said
Ted Meisel, who is also Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Inc. in a press release “Unifying
all of our search marketing and related products under one banner and one
common approach reflects our commitment to integrate and simplify online
advertising,
allowing businesses of all sizes to take advantage of the Yahoo! search
marketing solutions that best fit their marketing goals.”
Accompanying the re-branding announcement was the opening of the Yahoo!
Developers Network API. Search is recognized as being the essential
web-tool. Everything
from weather information to airline tickets are found via search tools
of one sort or another. Like its rivals, Yahoo offers several types
of search tools
such as images, maps, news, and video on top of general website search.
By opening its own API, Yahoo is inviting web developers to build Yahoo
search
services directly into the products they create. For example, a Star
Trek Enterprise fan-site could build a Yahoo powered search tool that
finds video relating
to quotes about the series. Similarly, a Phoenix Suns fan could create
an on-site application that calls video clips of the brilliant point-guard
Steve Nash.
Marketers can build tools tracking specific campaigns and smaller search
tools can combine their look and feel with Yahoo's massive database
to produce industry-specific
results (vertical search) for unique business sectors.
Yahoo's hard work to rebuild its brand strength against Google is slowly
paying off with rises in market share and customer loyalty. By clearing
up confusion
between the brand names Overture and Yahoo and opening the hood to
allow users to create their own versions of core products, Yahoo has
given
web searchers
and marketers the gifts of clarity and empowerment. Ultimately it has
given itself a gift of greater presence. Happy Birthday Yahoo!. Here's
to another
ten years.
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