Yahoo makes online ad deal with newspapers

Yahoo Inc. and seven newspaper publishers in the U.S. are partnering to deliver local advertising and search services to online newspaper readers.

Initially, the partnership will allow advertisers that list jobs in any of the newspapers involved to also post their jobs on Yahoo HotJobs, Yahoo's job listing site, Yahoo said Monday. Also, all of the involved newspapers' online job search sections will be co-branded with Yahoo and will be powered by HotJobs.

HotJobs allows advertisers to use a variety of technologies to display and deliver their ads, including streaming, interactive media, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and newsletters.

Yahoo expects that the jobs offering will create a strong local jobs network and allow recruitment advertisers to reach a larger audience.

The newspaper companies involved in the initiative include Belo Corp., Cox Newspapers Inc., Hearst Corp., Journal Register Co., Lee Enterprises Inc., MediaNews Group and The E.W. Scripps Co. The companies sell more than 170 daily newspapers in 38 states.

Yahoo and the newspapers have discussed other plans in addition to the online jobs collaboration. The newspapers could also use Yahoo's advertising platform to sell advertising on their Web sites, use some of Yahoo's search offerings such as sponsored search and offer downloads of Yahoo's toolbar.

The newspapers could also offer other Yahoo products such as Yahoo Local listings, Yahoo Maps and Event listings on their Web sites.

Yahoo and the newspapers believe that the use of local search will grow significantly in the next few years, creating a huge opportunity for local advertising, they said.

In early November, Yahoo competitor Google Inc. also announced an advertising plan with newspapers but Google's efforts enter the print world.

Google will start selling ads to existing Google advertisers in the print editions of newspapers. Initially, Google is testing the idea with The New York Times Co., Gannett Company Inc., Tribune Co., The Washington Post Co. and Hearst Corp.