Beginning tonight (or around 3pm EST - depending on who you are talking to), sponsored advertising on Yahoo! search results will be ranked based on bid price and quality score. Website Magazine reported on this a few weeks ago (read that post here). The change that Panama brings will help Yahoo place ads in front of users that are more likely to be clicked, and that means more revenue. There is quite a bit of speculation in certain circles that Panama is intended to be flexible enough to eventually handle video and audio ads and to distribute ads to mobile devices.

Tags: yahoo, YSM, panama, advertising, advertisers, yahoo search marketing