A Search Engine Roundtable Forums thread reports that Yahoo! is testing our their Panama Search Marketing engine out in the United Kingdom.
I was at the launch of Panama in the US on October 17, 2006. Yahoo! planned to roll it out worldwide later, and the UK is coming soon.
Our moderator, gabs, was at a Yahoo! demonstration of Panama last week. He said;
I've just been @ yahoo ... For a demo of yahoo panama..I will be launching very soon so we should see new algo's bouncing ads around a bit imho...
No date as yet
I suspect a launch in the UK by probably end of this quarter or early next quarter. These are guesses but if they are demonstrating it now, I suspect it is coming really soon.
Yahoo! has been emailing their UK advertisers warning them of this upgrade. The full text email can be seen at PPC blog, but here are two snippets of interest.
We launch our new ranking model successfully we have started running a limited test across our UK advertiser listings in which the display order of Sponsored Search listings in some keyword markets is based on factors other than bid.Our new Sponsored Search system will be rolled out in the UK soon, beginning with advertiser migration later this quarter. We will be contacting you with more specific information as the rollout date approaches.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
