A change would do you good

Yesterday Yahoo confirmed plans to discontinue Content Match, a contextual ad product that operates in Europe.

Slated to fold in March, Content Match displays contextual advertisements on sites within Yahoo's Publisher Network — much the way Google AdSense serves ads across the sites of participating publishers.

"By focusing our efforts on Sponsored Search and Display Solutions in Europe, we strengthen our commitment to deliver advertisers a high ROI and underline our mission to be an advertiser's 'partner of choice' to meet their marketing objectives," wrote a Yahoo spokesperson to ClickZ. She also suggested that, at least for now, Content Match will continue to operate in the US.

Stateside, and perhaps as a tribute to its renewed commitment to search in general, Yahoo recently incorporated deep Wikipedia links into search results.

This week marked significant change for the flagging search label. Yahoo just announced the appointment of a new CEO, Carol Bartz, who replaces co-founder Jerry Yang.

On Wednesday during her first media address, Bartz said she plans to give Yahoo "some friggin' breathing room," forcefully adding, "everyone on the outside's been deciding what it should and shouldn't do. That's going to stop."

Internally, Bartz purportedly told employees that her "gut instinct" is not to sell the company in the event Microsoft renews its previous attempts to purchase it.