Remember how Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, said that Yahoo's deal to run search ads sold by Google would not mean Yahoo would "have the ability to see whose ads are priced higher — Yahoo's or Google's — and then decide which ads to serve"? Forget all that, says Yahoo president Sue Decker in a blog post she wrote to defend the deal.
Google is getting higher bids than Yahoo! today, because advertisers perceive that Google is delivering more value–more targeted leads, more clicks, and more conversions. An advertiser might be willing to bid more for a click on Google than for a click on Yahoo!–the belief that the advertiser will get more value from Google. The core idea is limited use of Google ads to deliver more value from our search results pages and other inventory in circumstances where we aren’t delivering the best advertiser value today.
Translation: Yahoo will import Google ads on keywords where Google ads can provide more "value" to advertisers. These advertisers may pay more when they get more value, but that's just happy coincidence for Yahoo. Even simpler: Yahoo will "have the ability to see whose ads are priced higher — Yahoo's or Google's — and then decide which ads to serve."
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