PPC Advertising - The history of Yahoo Search Marketing and other PPC services

Almost from the beginning of the Internet, users have returned to the big three - Yahoo, MSN and Google - to help them find what they need on the millions of pages that populate the web. It seems fitting then, that these three giants of search engines were among the primary adopters of PPC advertising.

Yahoo and PPC

In 1998, a site called GoTo was changing how pages are ranked in search engines. Rather than leave it up to spiders or algorithms, the site has allowed advertisers to pay for placement in the standings. The more they paid the highest ranking. Three years later, the site has changed its name to Overture.

In 2003, Yahoo purchased Overture and made some changes in their services before re-branding them. That purchase essentially created Yahoo Search Marketing.

PPC advertising on AdWords

Google AdWords is probably the best known of the three PPC services. Yet, the version used today is very different than previous versions.

In 2000 when the service launched, has requested a monthly service fee and a staff that was responsible for all the work, including the management of the ads. Eventually, the self-service portal has been created to assist companies with lower advertising budgets.

Today, the program is so popular and profitable for companies that Google has created a system to certify people so that they can demonstrate that they have been trained to use the program efficiently.

MSN and Microsoft adCenter

MSN PPC service was the last to be implemented. Even if Microsoft had been hard at work developing a similar service, have launched their own until the end of 2006.

While the service works like the rest of its competitors, Microsoft was busy purchase and acquisition of technology companies whose work can be used to integrate MSN services and, finally, to give added edge over the competition....