• by Shankar Gupta , December 13, 2006

Yahoo Tuesday opened registration for its highly anticipated "Panama" search engine marketing platform to all advertisers. With the new platform, Yahoo's paid search offerings are expected to become far more competitive with those of market leader Google.

Among the main features are new geo-targeting capabilities and analytics, as well as instantaneous review of ad copy. In the past, it took Yahoo between 24 and 48 hours to approve ads.

Bryan Wiener, president of search engine marketing firm 360i, said he expected that the new features would boost click-through rates on paid search campaigns. "We're really bullish on Panama," he said.

Yahoo began inviting select advertisers onto the Panama platform in October. In July, Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel announced that the overhaul--which was initially scheduled for the third quarter of this year--would be delayed until the end of 2006, and that advertisers should prepare to use the system starting in 2007.

Despite the end-of-year rollout, it's possible that many advertisers will wait to switch over to the new platform until the end of the holiday shopping season, said Chris Copeland, managing director of search engine marketing firm Outrider. "I think most marketers are not looking to launch today," he said. "Our retail clients are in no way engaging in the new system until the holiday. Many marketers won't utilize this until early 2007."

Ideally, Wiener said, the Panama platform will provide a jumping-off point for Yahoo to integrate its search and display ad businesses--something that Google has already done. "The search and display needs to be integrated, so it's easier for a marketer to run an integrated campaign across Yahoo's properties," he said.

The rollout is coming at the end of a challenging year for Yahoo. The company has failed to catch up to Google in search market share, and has floundered in attempts to claim a bigger stake in the burgeoning social media space. Earlier this year, talks to acquire social networking site Facebook for more than $1 billion reportedly stalled.

In September, Semel said the company was seeing a slowdown in growth in financial and auto ad sales. Overall, the company's stock is down more than 30% this year.

Last week, Yahoo underwent a major shake-up, which resulted in the resignations of Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and media group head Lloyd Braun.