Panama (ad system)

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Yahoo! Search to Verizon Media Native. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2021.

Panama was an online advertising platform created by Yahoo!, launched on 5 February 2007.^[1]

Panama was Yahoo's effort to close the wide gap with Google in the race for search advertising dollars, a fast-growing business then dominated by Google, which is now also dominated by Google. Customers with accounts already on Yahoo! were transferred to the new system over the following few months.

Yahoo! current advertising service is called Verizon Media Native.

History[]

Yahoo! inherited the search advertising business when it purchased Overture (previously named Goto.com). Until Panama, Yahoo! search continued to operate the original simplistic algorithm which ranked text ads according to how much advertisers bid for the keyword searched by the user. Meanwhile, Google operates under a more sophisticated model, which ranks paid ads on the basis of bid price as well as prior click-through rates. This improvement generally produces higher click through rates (hence higher revenues) for the search engine.^{[citation needed]}

For example, an ambulance-chasing attorney bidding for the keywords "back pain" would likely get a lower clickthrough rate than the keyword "physiotherapist", regardless of what the two parties bid per click. An algorithm that eventually de-prioritises the attorney's ad is better for the search engine (in terms of revenue produced) and the user (more relevant ads).

Key players in the Panama project were Brian Acton, David Henke & Qi Lu.

Features[]

The platform provided advertisers with a digital dashboard where they can manage their marketing campaigns, aim ads geographically, and test their effectiveness. It included interactive tools that suggest to advertisers what to bid based on their budget and the number of users they want to attract.^[2]

The so-called "quality index" gave advertisers a sense of how the system would rank an ad along with sophisticated analytical tools that gave advertisers insights on why certain campaigns had been effective.^{[citation needed]}

References[]