• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, November 1, 2011

Despite its own uncertain future, Yahoo just acquired ad technology firm Interclick for a reported $270 million.

“Not the move you’d expect for a company undergoing a ‘strategic review,’” writes The Wall Street Journal. “Yahoo is in the middle of a complicated chess game to maybe sell the company, or something.”

“While not a huge deal, the fact that the company is making acquisitions while it is supposedly shopping for a buyer is only going to increase the Street’s fears that there will be no buyer for Yahoo, after all,” suggests Forbes.

“It’s an odd time for Yahoo to be announcing a major acquisition considering the company’s less than stellar financial situation, following the departure of CEO Carol Bartz and amidst reports of a possible takeover,” TechCrunch agrees.

To some, however, the deal makes sense -- sort of. “Among Yahoo’s many problems is that its once-great sales organization is broken,” AllThingsD writes.

“Yahoo Americas boss Ross Levinsohn believes he can fix it with a combination of new talent and technology,” AllThingsD adds. “Interclick fits into this plan because Yahoo plans to use the company’s tech and relationships to help it sell more of the remnant inventory that it currently hands over to ad networks.”

Likewise, “Yahoo has been exploring an ad partnership with Microsoft and AOL to compete better with Google,” ZDNet notes. “Interclick could serve as the glue if such an ad partnership were to develop completely.”

As Levinsohn says in a release: “This investment underscores our focus on enhancing the performance of both our guaranteed and non-guaranteed display business across Yahoo and our partner sites.”