jim2003 - 1:32 am on Mar 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

Hello,

In all likelyhood increased competition will be better for publishers. But I can imagine one scenario where this may not be true. If Yahoo is more selective in its publisher base than Adsense , the stronger converting Adsense publishers may leave the adsense network, leading to a decrease in the amount Adwords advertisers will be bid for the Adsense content network. This would lead to lower revenues for the remaining adsense advertisers.

Adsense could respond in any number of ways, including becoming more selective in its choice of publishers or allowing advertisers to be selective in which adsense advertisers it is willing to bid on.

Currently advertisers don't have a way to know which Adsense publishers actually convert sales. If yahoo provides such transparency, then Adsense may be forced to to compete. If you currently run Adsense on a site that generates lots of clicks, but doesn't really convert to sales, the transparency of knowing that could really hinder that sites revenue potential.

All this is a long winded way of saying, you never know.

Regards,