Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) is Yahoo's competitive answer to Google AdSense.  The network is a contextual advertising program serving text ads to your website.  Using Yahoo's Content Match technology, Yahoo Publisher Network serves content-relevant ads to your site.  Each time a visitor to your site clicks on one of these ads, you will receive a referral commission from Yahoo Publisher Network.

Formerly available only to large websites, Yahoo! has now made the network available to sites of all sizes. 

The network, currently in beta version, is available in the US only.  The company plans to unveil the advertising program worldwide in the spring of 2006.

The Yahoo Publisher Network also provides access to other Yahoo! products that can enhance their visitor experience, such as "Add to My Yahoo!" and Y!Q Beta. The "Add to My Yahoo!" feature provides publishers the opportunity to promote and distribute their content on Yahoo! via RSS, drive traffic back to their sites, and develop repeat daily relationships with their readers. The Y!Q Beta is a first-of-its kind contextual search product that can help webmasters increase the "stickiness" of their sites by providing visitors with convenient, related search results overlaid directly on their website.

Yahoo! promises to add many features to the Yahoo Publisher Network as the advertiser base is built up.  The main improvements will integrate the network with other Yahoo content and services, including web search, music and video, RSS ads and popular Yahoo staples in the shopping and travel spaces.  The network also plans to integrate it's "Save To My Web" feature, enabling readers to save and share pages from a publishers site to My Web - Yahoo!'s personal search engine service, resulting in more return visitors and increased reader loyalty.  Yahoo! is currently conducting tests to evaluate the advertising capabilities of Y!Q and RSS feeds.

"Yahoo! has developed many highly successful relationships with web publishers around the world, and is building on those experiences to bring new revenue sources and compelling content to even more high quality sites," said Bill Demas, senior vice president, Yahoo! Partner Solutions group. "By helping the broader publishing community maximize the value of their sites, we aim to create an even more rewarding Internet experience for publishers, advertisers and users."

The Yahoo! Publisher Network's self-serve platform allows webmasters the ability to sign up online at http://publisher.yahoo.com.

Discuss this article in the Yahoo Publishers Network Forums.  Or discuss other ways to generate revenue in the ReveNow! Forums.