• by March 2, 2004

Yahoo!'s segue back into search marketing took another step yesterday as it debuted a plan to include paid links in search results. While advertisers that pay to have their websites included in search results won't advance the sites' rankings, consumers won't know whether an advertiser has paid to have its links included.

How will this affect the quality of the search results? Could this become a problem for consumers somewhere down the road? Google, the leading search provider, labels results that are advertiser sponsored and unsponsored. It also does not offer marketers a paid inclusion option for its traditional listings.

Yahoo!'s new system of grouping both paid and unpaid links together without indicating which marketers have paid and which haven't, may lead to frustrated consumers. Ironically, Yahoo!, which debuted its Content Acquisition Program yesterday with the express purpose of offering the freshest, most relevant search results, could end up with a misfire. Of course it remains to be seen whether consumers will catch on. Yahoo!, which for all intents and purposes, ceded the search marketplace to Google over the last couple of years, needs a flawless execution of its search services. The landgrab has begun.