According to Search Engine Roundtable Yahoo! has incorporated some minor changes in the advertisement layout of its SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) and has also reduced the number of advertisements shown in the SERPs. They have now relocated the position of the display URL under the description. The advertisement layout now also contains only three advertisements, instead of four as in the previous layout.

Here is an image of the 'Old Layout':

If you would look closely at the above image, you'll find that the display URL for the advertisement is in coherence with the description. Also, there are four advertisements in the console.

Now take a look at the 'Improved Layout':

In this image you'll notice the display URL has been moved underneath the description and also the console now only contains three advertisements.

There are several interesting posts at Search Engine Roundtable Forums. Here a few excerpts from that thread:

“Overnite, it looks like Yahoo has done another major change to their sponsored ads. On some of the keywords that I follow that normally show 4 ads above the organic results, it's now only three – very consistently! Also, the ads look simultaneously more compact (closer together), and yet bigger (the URLs are now on a line by themselves). Looks like Yahoo may be finally able to more efficiently monetize, and can now afford to show fewer ads. Can others verify?”

“I see it now, blogging it up. Thanks!”

This new change is a classic example of Yahoo! following Google's every move. Now, the way I see it, if this isn't being a copycat, then I don't know what is.

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