Data released by comScore indicates a tremendous hike in the number of search advertisements which were clicked at the time of initial week of the new Yahoo Search Marketing Panama ranking & Quality Index roll out.

A report published by Reuters:

Data collected by Internet usage measuring firm comScore Networks showed that the number of Yahoo search users who clicked on ads — known as the click-through rate — rose 5 percent in the first week after the new system's debut and 9 percent in the second week.

The second part of  Yahoo Local Advertising Options, Post-Panama at ClickZ has some fine tips on local search marketing. Patricia Hursh, the author of this writeup explains intricately which ad product is best for your online marketing needs. 

For sponsored search Patricia recommends, “geotargeted Sponsored Search campaigns for Internet-savvy local businesses, regional firms, Web-based businesses, and national chains, franchises, and dealerships. Really, any business — local or not — wanting to present different messages or offers to searchers in various locations can benefit from Yahoo's geotargeted Sponsored Search.”

Barry Schwartz has a post about a Webmasterworld thread where Yahoo! representative, YahooSarah, phas explained the Quality Index Score system introduced in Panama. The represenatative says:

Remember that more than click-through rate influences the quality of an ad: The quality of an ad is determined relative to other ads displayed at the same time by both its expected performance going forward and its historical performance. Historical performance data was not purged on February 5, but as time passes, the data generated after the launch of the new ranking model will have the strongest influence on ad quality calculations.

Florian Reichling reports that her Yahoo! account went offline and can't be restored, ever, after using the bulk upload feature.her account displayed a message:

The account sempunch.com [my account number] is not displaying ads as of 2/5/07 2:04 PM. This may be because the account has reached its daily spending limit, its balance has been depleted, or your company’s account administrator has set the account status to off. But none of this had happened.

Panama, Yahoo!'s new ad ranking system, was launched yesterday. Highly anticipated before by both advertisers and the company itself, the initial feedback is a bag of mixed feelings. The new system has been appreciated by users for the easy to use digital dashboard as well as tools for better insight into the campaign.
But Yahoo! has also drawn flak for introducing the "quality" factor into ad placement calculations, which is surprisingly followed by both Google and MSN for long now. Previously, higher bids in Yahoo! ensured higher placements. But with the introduction of the quality feature, waters have become murkier for advertisers.

Starting around 3 p.m. Pacific time on Monday, a group of Yahoo executives will begin shuttling among three war rooms at the company's search marketing unit here.

Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool will not work once Yahoo! stops supporting it and moves to the new Panama tool. However, Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool will have some important and valid historical data. There are reports from DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld Forums that the tool is not working. In addition the related tools are also showing errors. The tool of DigitalPoint in Overture column is showing "No data for phrase".

Search Engine Land has reported that the Wall Street Journal has given a detailed article regarding reviews and opinions on Yahoo!'s earnings call, on experiences with Panama platform migration. 

The positive comments include:

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting about search marketing advertisers in United Kingdom have got mails from Yahoo! that lowest bid for some keywords have been decreased to 5P. But there are some keywords whose lowest bid will remain 10p. New prices will take affect from 19th January, 2007. Some are saying that lowest bid of 10p will not change for some 150k terms such as finance terms. Besides United Kingdom there have been changes in bids in Germany, Switzerland and Austria also.

Recently Marty Weintraub reported on his official blog that Yahoo! has decided to incapacitate some of Panama Geo-Targeting features as they are nonfunctional. The astonishing part is that it is not everyday Yahoo! like web giants acknowledge their faults especially since Panama Geo-Targeting was anticipated to have a feature improvement.