Yahoo Adds Some Premium Brands to Publisher Network

David Card | October 16, 2007, 06:19 PM

Buried in Yahoo's earnings, was the announcement of four new ad deals. They're with premium brands who have solid traffic, and signing them speaks well to Yahoo's getting its ad network act together.

- Forbes is an exclusive, for remnant display
- WebMD is an exclusive, and also involves search
- Ziff Davis (I think they still have some titles left). Non-exclusive
- Cars.com (non exclusive)

Intriguingly, the deals are sort of two-way. All of the publishers can also buy Yahoo inventory to target their own site visitors who go on to a Yahoo property. But I'm using the term "target" pretty loosely, as none of them can actually buy context: no choice in property, position, or placement.

Cars.com is allowed to do geographic targeting, so this is not a technology limitation, but rather a resolution to potential channel conflict. Yahoo says it will serve up those 2-way ads based on its own yield management schemes, so presumably Forbes or WebMD would have to outbid other potential buyers.

Still, it's a bit of a "take that, Google, you almost-media company" moment.