Overture Being Renamed

Update: Official Press Release

SMH.com is reporting that Yahoo! is changing the overture brand name to Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions.

Back in 2001 GoTo.com was renamed to Overture. At the time, GoTo was a very recognizable brand name and I remember thinking that the name change to Overture was going to be a long and difficult process for them. Clearly I was wrong as Overture quickly became a name synonymous with PPC advertising, long before Google AdWords came on the market.

For this reason I’m a bit surprised that Yahoo! is changing the Overture brand. It’s certainly understandable, as they want to bring all their products into a common name, but I find “Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions” to be quite a mouthful.

I won’t make the mistake twice, doubting the success of a name change for this property, but Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions? Surely they could have come up with something better!