The many search engines that are vying for the attention of the millions of internet users are doing their best to get the lion’s share of the search engine market. For these companies, the best way to catch the attention of both internet users and web masters (or website owners) is by offering different products that would enhance the experience or the benefits that users can get from the service. The more beneficial the service to the user then the more likely that they will prefer using that search engine’s service over the others. These kinds of enticements are what are driving the constant need to present new products or innovate on the existing program introduced by a rival.

One of the newest products that internet giant Yahoo! recently unveiled to the public was the Yahoo! Publisher Network program. This new program is the internet search engine pioneer’s answer to the widely popular and market leading Google’s AdSense program. Yahoo! Publisher is a method of delivering and distributing what is popularly known as the “long tail” of internet ads. These are basically advertisements that come from small and medium sized publishers which are then specifically targeted for delivery through the thousands (if not millions) of micro, small and medium sized websites and blog sites on the internet.

Many people who use the Yahoo! Publisher Network would immediately see its huge similarities with Google AdSense. But as with the nature of competition, the former has added a number of “improvements” or differences to distinguish itself from the more popular AdSense program.

The first distinction is the Ad targeting aspect of Yahoo! Publisher. With this feature, a registered user of Yahoo! Publisher will have a greater degree of control on which ads will be displayed and where it should be displayed.

Another notable improvement is that Yahoo! Publisher now gives users more say in terms of the customization aspect of the ads compared to Google AdSense. Although the latter offers some customization controls, it is nowhere near as sophisticated as the one that is being used by Yahoo! Publisher especially in terms of ad colors and the layout.

Yahoo! Publisher also offers greater flexibility and options for such data as tracking use, clickthroughs as well as in the creation of reports.

Similar to Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network ads will also begin appearing a mere few seconds after you have pasted the required ad code into the web pages. In the case that there is no ad available for the particular page then public service announcements will be displayed on the box instead.

One particularly notable feature of Yahoo! Publisher is the ad targeting. This new feature allows a user to identify and select the type of ads that he feels will be the best fit for the readers or visitors in his website or blog site. The user can actually choose up to two ad categories that can be applied to his website, to a specific directory in his website, or to a content-specific page in the site.