A couple of days ago, Yahoo has launched “Yahoo My Display Ads”, a self-serve display ad marketplace for ads on Yahoo sites and partner sites.

AdReady, a Seattle-based technology provider powers the ad customization part of the program. Further, Yahoo’s Right Media exchange manages the ad inventory for Yahoo and other partner network sites.

There have been reports about new changes in Yahoo! Search, soon after its last update in the month of February. People have been speculating about the changes, since they are seeing heavy fluctuations in the Yahoo Search results. According to the reports, Yahoo!’s new updates are about:

• Link counts dropped
• Reports on canonical issues
• One person reported “different titles and descriptions for singular vs. plural of my main keyword. It’s the same URL, so kind of odd.”

According to the Yahoo Search Japan blog, “Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the “Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)” has started a full update of the index.

Many webmasters at WebmasterWorld are talking about Yahoo Search update. According to them, Yahoo Search is updating its index and algorithm. However, officially it has not been confirmed yet! Below are some of the important points from the WebmasterWorld thread:

1. Link counts have seen some amount of drop.
2. Canonical issues are also discussed.
3. One person is reporting “I am seeing two different titles and descriptions for singular vs. plural of my main keyword. It’s the same URL, so kind of odd.”

Even though Yahoo! has not announced the update officially, but the Yahoo Search Japan blog announced it. Here is the translation

After Zimra founder Satish Dharmaraj marking his exit from Yahoo!, another executive to resign from the search engine is Marco Boerries. The top mobile executive has already announced his resignation

Boerries wrote in an email,“With a very heavy heart I have to tell you, that I will be leaving Yahoo!.” He cited personal reasons for the departure. Boerries spent four years as Yahoo!’s top mobile executive. He was named the 16th most powerful person in the wireless industry by FierceWireless in the year 2008.

As part of marketing strategy, Yahoo! Canada has joined hands with the Air Miles Rewards Program to issue Air Miles collectors some free reward miles for doing everyday searches through Yahoo! With this partnership Yahoo! is all set to increase its market share in the world of search engine.

According to Gina Cothey, Director of Network Optimization, Yahoo! Canada,

Yahoo! has recently indulged in testing a new feature called “Search Pad,” which automatically collects sites and content when users conduct online research. The feature is almost similar to Google’s Notebook application (that has already been disposed!) But, now reports are that the webmasters are not happy with Yahoo’s Search Pad. According to them, it is a scrapper tool! Some of them are even willing to block this tool completely. The point is that the tool has not been getting much positive reviews!

Below is a video to help you know more about its working:

Yahoo! Search Marketing has recently updated its help center. Following are changes that have been made:

• Better organization and easier navigation: Now, fewer clicks, and better navigation is the main motto of Yahoo! Search.
• Stronger search functionality: Now, search results are more relevant than they used to be.
  Links: Users will now get links to their related search as well.
• Single Page FAQ: The Help Center FAQs are now hosted on a single page. Users are not required to surf them every where.

Yahoo! in a recent email to the Search Marketing advertisers, notified about their new terms and conditions, as well as informed that they can create ads, remove or add keywords to campaigns and optimize accounts. It has also been notified that the search engine can do all these without the permission of the advertisers. Read more at Barry Schwartz post.

Have a look at the the current version and the archived version of the terms and conditions. Here is the snippet of the terms and conditions, which states:

Recently, Yahoo! announced that its data retention policy from 13 months has been reduced to just 3 months. Now, people are eager to know what would be the reaction of Google to this news.

As far as the users’ experience with Yahoo! is concerned, they are not going to notice any difference, regarding its products or services, or any other facility. Moreover, advertising procedure on Yahoo! will remain the same as the earlier.

“In our world of customized online services, responsible use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining user trust,” said Anne Toth, Yahoo’s vice president of policy. “We know that our users expect relevant and compelling content and advertising when they visit Yahoo, but they also want assurances that we are focused on protecting their privacy.”

News is that Yahoo! Buzz is getting some new features! Now, Yahoo Buzz Publisher has new landing pages. These pages can be used to display submitted content along with related activity for their “Buzzed up” contents.
The landing pages will have publisher-specific Yahoo! Updates modules and RSS/Add-to-My Yahoo! Buzz feeds.