The top two search engine companies have made additions and enhancements to various aspects of their online advertising businesses:

Yahoo! Panama Update

Yahoo! has updated their Panama search advertising platform with several small (but welcomed) changes.

Keywords now can be copied and/or moved between ad groups. Previously, CCP (cut/copy/paste) was the only way to do it. Now you simply select the keywords you want to modify, click either the move or copy button, and follow the simple prompts to make your changes. “Move” will take keywords out of the existing ad group and put them in another while “copy” duplicates those keywords and puts them in both.

Yahoo! also updated their keyword selector tool to be more “streamlined”. They’ve also added more help documentation through the system. The update I’m probably most excited to see is a tool that shows you existing ads of other advertisers using the same keywords. Not only does this help you come up with your ad copy, but it also makes differentiating your ad much, much easier!

Google Referrals 2.0

Google has greatly expanded their referral program to include products from thousands of advertisers.

Previously in beta, Referrals 2.0 is being rolled out to AdSense publishers and offers a slew of improvements over its predecessor. For one, AdSense Referrals aren’t limited to Google-only products any longer. You’re now given the option choose a product category and/or keyword and select referral products that fit your website’s niche.

You can also select ad unit-specific keywords to help better target your referral ads on pages with multiple subjects. On a blog, for example, the index page may contain a number of topics. You can now set specific keywords for each ad unit and place post-specific referral ads in each post. No more spotty contextual targeting!

And remember: you are allowed to explicitly tell your readers to click on referral links. If you endorse a product being referred, tell your readers why and encourage them to give the product a try.