Matt Cutts made an interesting comment in one of his recent blog posts, regarding the inequity of media coverage that the core search improvements at Google get relative to the whiz-bang new services such as Street View on Google Maps.

In brief summary, his argument (and we agree with him) is that just because the media isn't covering it, doesn't mean that Google isn't working on it. He cited many examples of continuous refinement and innovation on core search products of which most, if not all of us, likely haven't heard of.

So, we want to dole out some kudos to Yahoo for working to improve their YSM product for advertisers. As I was leaving SMX Advanced on Monday evening I checked my email on my mobile only to see email confirmation of a rumor I had heard at the conference just minutes before. Yahoo announced a new quality-based pricing initiative for their search network.

In short, with this initiative, Yahoo will be discounting clicks you receive from search network partners which are deemed less than top quality. We won't go into specifics as you can click the link above for more info, but this is definitely a welcome change and improvement for YSM clients.

We have worked with Yahoo network quality folks before and have had great experiences taking care of issues with our clients. So, this is a further improvement that likely automates much of the work this team used to have to accomplish manually in the past.

So, even though we ripped Yahoo a little in our last post for not being at the same level feature and performance wise as Adwords, improvements like this will go a long way in retaining and attracting advertisers. Nice job Yahoo!