As per Google, Yahoo has added geo-targeting to its dashboard. Until recently, geo-targeting was based around Designated Marketing Areas (DMA), determined by Nielsen Media Research. Yahoo now offers a more granular way to identify local Internet users.

“There are a good number of Internet users whose IP addresses suggest they are located within the U.S., but are not easy to pinpoint to individual states you’ve selected,” posted YahooPete on the SearchEngineWatch.com forum. “Since geo-targeting is designed to show your ads to users our system recognizes as located within your geo-targeted areas, in the old system those users might not have seen your ad.”

The recently launched system uses an Internet user’s search query along with their IP address and “other user information” to determine where they are and which ads to serve them. The targeting goes down as far as individual ZIP codes in a version currently in beta, unlike Advtise.com who are in full swing with Geo Targeting covering every town in the world already.

Tags: advertising, Geo targeting, google, nielsen media research, pay per click, yahoo