Yahoo india launches Search Marketing system

Yahoo launches its Search Marketing system in India. This Search Marketing System is a sponsored search system that will help advertisers in managing their online ad campaigns and increase their ROI.

According to Sandeep Deshpande " Yahoo search Marketing will allow Advertisers to run analytic on thier campaigns and run on different version of the same campaign to identify the best campaign.
To use this services you have to sign up option.

1. Self Setup - where you will Set Up your Own Account. In this no setup fees is required. Only you have to pay minimum deposit $30
2. Assisted Setup - Here you will get help to sep up your account. Here you have to pay setup fees
   

• * $199 one-time setup fee.
• * $100 minimum deposit required.
• * Plan to spend more than $300/month?
• * Here you will receive a full campaign proposal in 2-5 business days.
  

“The new and more powerful Yahoo Search Marketing platform will enable marketers to manage their campaigns with ease and potentially derive improved ROI,” Sandeep Deshpande, GM, search marketing and small business, Yahoo India, has said. “Additionally, it presents a significant opportunity for existing YSM advertisers across the world to target Indian consumers.”

Prashant Mehta, vice president and head, advertiser and partner group, emerging markets, Yahoo, has said, “We are very excited to introduce this new platform, which makes it easier for marketers to understand the performance of their campaigns and experiment more frequently with the medium.”

As asked "how YSM is different from competing products like Google’s AdSense", Prashant Mehta said, “Conventionally, advertisers that bid the most for specific keywords have the most chance of having their ads displayed. Our new platform will reward advertisers by focusing on contextually relevant ads, irrespective of the advertiser’s bid price. Apart from that, we have also added features like enhanced conversion tracking.”

Glue Pages, the new search feature from Yahoo India

Glue Pages, the new search feature launched by yahoo India which collect and adds the most relevant information/details from the world wid web into a single visible SERP. Example if you search for Sonia Gandhi, it gives biographical quick-facts, videos, newspaper ads, photos and content from Yahoo answers.

According to Yahoo India, Glue Pages contains mixture of text, images and video content and is available for selected search terms or category as health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology and finance. Web searcher will also see links for other Glue Pages on topics related to their query.

Gopal Krishna, head of audience, Yahoo India, has said, “The new Glue Pages Beta feature for Yahoo India Search supports our strategy to make Yahoo the leading starting point on the internet and demonstrates our commitment to provide a compelling online search experience.”

“Glue Pages Beta limits guesswork for the user by providing the best of web, all onto one 'at-a-glance' page. Over time, Glue Pages Beta will be made available to more categories that are relevant to users in India,” Sandeep Shrivastava, director, search, Yahoo India, has added.

Yahoo India Maps – In Your Language

Yahoo! India, for the first time in India, started their new service by enhancing the Yahoo! Maps to show results in different languages. The new strategy is to attract more Indian customers to use internet. With this service, Yahoo! wishes to penetrate the local markets and influence varied target customers.

Some of the salient features in the enhanced Yahoo! Map are:

1) Use of local languages and user friendly features

2) Proper walking directions displayed

3) Flexibility to access via SMS, email, and web

4) Well-known landmarks displayed

5) Location of ATMs, Hospitals, restaurants, Malls etc are mentioned


Yahoo selected 9 different languages like Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam to start with the Yahoo India Map. They may add more languages later.

The users of Yahoo! India can search for different destination across 179 cities, 4,767 towns, and 226,114 villages. Also there is a facility for users to search for over 3 million points of interest. It’s really a good strategy to penetrate the market.

As India is the second largest country in world regarding population with an economic growth that is maintaining good pace, therefore it would be a good idea to penetrate into more local and niche markets to reap more benefits. This is perhaps what Yahoo! is now trying to do by influencing the general people and habituating them with Internet and the web.

It’s a good strategy to compete with the world’s leading search engine service provider Google. But will the Yahoo Map be able to compete with Google maps. Think about it.

All Quiet on the Yahoo Front

The Microsoft and Yahoo upheavals seem to have settled down, but is it the calm before the real storm?

Yahoo is taking more time than expected to respond to the proposal by Microsoft. Is it waiting for Microsoft to lift the bid and let the transactions close? Is Yahoo turning to Time Warner or not?

According to Mark Mahaney, Citigroup analyst, "We believe that a Yahoo sale to Microsoft -- at a price likely higher than the initial $31 [per share] bid -- is the most likely outcome. While we continue to see no other competing bidders, we believe Yahoo is aggressively pursuing strategic alternatives. One possibility is a tie-up with Time Warner, whereby Time Warner would contribute its online content assets to Yahoo in exchange for a stake. We believe this could serve as a forcing function to a higher Microsoft bid."

While some of the industry watchdogs are suggesting that this is just a gimmick by Yahoo to get a higher bid, the rest simply can not come to terms with the Microsoft & Yahoo marriage.

Yahoo! Supports Open Social Foundation

With the support that Yahoo! has provided, Google’s OpenSocial Foundation has gained a momentum and the backing of the most visited Website in USA. OpenSocial was introduced in October in an effort to cut time and cost of developer by letting them create a single application that works on multiple sites. The OpenSocial software is aimed to enable developers put their programs on more social networking sites.

The OpenSocial concept comes from the fact that the social media sites have gained immense popularity and are doing rather well with people across the globe. The OpenSocial foundation is formed by the 3 industry giants – Yahoo!, Google and News Corp.’s MySpace. This is a non profit organization that is formed to promote the OpenSocial technology.

The OpenSocial software can also be the silver lining for Yahoo! at a time when sales growth at Yahoo! has sloped down from 22% in 2006 to 8%. It is through the popularity of the social networking sites, Yahoo! can hope to gain a better foothold in the industry back again, especially because advertisers have found potential target audience in such sites.

Google Vs Microsoft: Who Bags the Yahoo Deal

Yet another twist to the Microsoft and Google battle is the bid to take over the giant Yahoo. After its public announcement of offering an unsolicited $44.6 billion to buy Yahoo, Microsoft has created a storm in the online industry. But for Google, it was yet another altercation after the tiff over Google's proposition to buy the online advertising company DoubleClick.

According to sources, now Google is also paving its path to help Yahoo. Almost a year back, when Google proposed to buy Yahoo, the deal did not happen. It is that time of the year again, when two giants are battling it out to pull off the deal. As per Google, if Microsoft wins over the deal, then it would have formidable control of the web and that makes the 'openness' of the web quite vulnerable.

Sources close to Yahoo opine that the board at Yahoo has asked for more time from Microsoft to think over the deal. They also said that Yahoo is open to Google buying them out and it is also considering the choice to remain independent.

But what do netizens, the end users, have to say about all this? There have been mixed responses from the netizens who also are aware of both the propositions. While some believe that Microsoft's takeover of Yahoo would not really affect their search and that it would be a good match, on the other hand, others opine that Google would remain the undoubted leader whether Microsoft wins Yahoo or Google does.