I’m surprised that the Yahoo earnings announcement has not gotten a lot of play on other performance marketing blogs. On Tuesday the company announced earnings for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2006. Many people at the Affiliate Summit – especially PPC guys and search folks – claim these numbers would be a pivotal indicator of the potential success of Panama – regardless of how Yahoo attempted to spin the news.

Panama is Yahoo’s new search algorithm that will rank ads both by bid and quality in an attempt to raise advertisers’ returns, especially those with relevant products and on-target messaging. It’s the centerpiece of the company’s strategy going forward and a move to close the gap with rival Google. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Yahoo’s share of the online searches fell toward the end of 2006, to 23.6 percent, under half of Google’s 50.8 percent share.

Yahoo reported that Q4 profit was off 61 percent from last year, but its shares rose 5.6 percent on news that Panama will be rolled out February 5, slightly ahead of a revised schedule. The rollout was delayed from July to October and then to March due to technical difficulties in upgrading clients – difficulties that persist, particularly among smaller customers.

But whether or not search marketers are embracing Panama reamins unclear. Most I spoke with at the Affiliate Summit were not. Still, Yahoo officials say they expect Panama to boost revenue per search 10 percent by the second half of 2007.

On another note…If you happened to stop by the Revenue booth at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas you likely filled out one of our new qualification cards. By doing so you received a free subscription to the magazine and were automatically put into a random drawing for a chance to be interviewed on the Affiliate Thing podcast, which is hosted by Shawn Collins and moi. The winner, drawn yesterday, was Lisa Johnson, marketing manager at Brookstone and she’ll appear on a future episode of the show. Congrats.

lisap@revenuetoday.com