WebProNews

Sponsored searches in Taiwan may have just gotten a bit better - Yahoo introduced the upgrade known as Panama.  Unfortunately, this will once again lead us towards something resembling a geographical “Who’s on First?” routine.

Yahoo Takes Panama To Taiwan

Unless, of course, we ignore the “Panama” moniker, which is exactly what The China Post’s Dimitri Bruyas did.  I admire his style, and his quotes from Hung Hsiao-ling, the general manager of Yahoo Taiwan.

“Since 2005, sponsored searches in the United States and Korea have been steadily increasing,” said Hsiao-ling.  “In 2007, sponsored searches constituted 43 percent of all searches in the U.S., and 62 percent in Korea.”  Bruyas points out that paid searches are only at 36 percent in Taiwan, though, and the possibility of improvement was likely a motivating factor behind the introduction of Yahoo’s upgrade.

The last place in which we saw Panama take hold was Australia; prior to that, our own David Utter covered a round of improvements, and Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing wrote, “Panama is catching up to Google AdWords in features pretty quickly.”  Google, meanwhile, has been testing different homepages in various Asian markets.

Hat tip to Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker.