Yahoo! To Offer Consumer Reports Content

Web portal Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced Monday it will now offer product ratings and buying guides from Consumer Reports on its shopping site, a move that Yahoo! said will attract more traffic to its existing merchants and provide revenue from pay-per-view content sales.

The deal involves both free buying guides and pay-per-view product ratings from Consumer Reports, a service of Consumers Union that tests and ranks products ranging from cars to coffeemakers.

Yahoo! Shopping vice president and general manager Rob Solomon said the agreement responds to consumer demand for "trusted information and resources" to help make buying decisions.

"Consumer Reports has established itself as one of the most popular and trusted fee-based sites on the Web," Solomon said.

Free and Fee

The agreement with Yahoo! follows a deal Consumer Reports forged with Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) late last year to provide product analysis to the e-commerce giant.

Yahoo! said that the free Consumer Reports buying guides are now available over Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Autos.

In addition, in-depth product reports are available for a fee of US$2.95 each, with Yahoo! receiving an undisclosed share of the revenue from each content sale. The pay-per-view service provides access to the report over Yahoo! for 30 days, including new information as it is updated by Consumer Reports.

Going Wide

Adding content from Consumer Reports is the latest step in Yahoo's ongoing diversification plan. Yahoo! has been working to multiply its sources of revenue to combat a slowdown in Internet advertising.

However, Yahoo! shares were up 89 cents at $20.35 in early trading Monday, following reports that SG Cowen had upgraded the stock to neutral from sell because of better-than-expected online advertising sales .

Last week, Yahoo! said a January decision to charge fees for listing items on its auction site is paying off with a higher percentage of items being sold and higher prices for auctioned goods.

In April, Yahoo! announced a premium financial service that offers users real-time quotes and news for a $9.95 monthly fee.

Extending the Brand

"This business relationship with Yahoo! enables Consumer Reports to reach one of the largest purchasing audiences on the Web," said John Sateja, vice president of new media at Consumers Union. "This relationship also gives Consumer Reports the ability to extend our brand online, and develop new relationships with consumers in addition to the more than 560,000 online subscribers we currently serve at our Web site."

Yahoo! said it has placed links to Consumer Reports content in relevant areas of its site, in addition to creating a centralized location for the buying-guide service.