Yahoo owned Overture so their results were pure pay-for-placement. If anyone wanted to pay $100 per click to have the #1 spot on "beef" go to a site about chic

Yahoo owned Overture so their results were pure pay-for-placement. If anyone wanted to pay $100 per click to have the #1 spot on "beef" go to a site about chicken, that was a-OK with Yahoo management. When Yahoo realized their auction system was stupid, they had "project Panama" which was also a joke and by that time Google had the market to themselves anyway.