Last year, Yahoo still dominated display advertising on the Web in terms of sheer number of ad impressions on its properties, but social networking sites MySpace and Facebook came on strong. Some new data from comScore in its just-released 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review ranks the top Web properties by the number of display ad impressions. Yahoo served up an estimated 521 billion impressions ...

Online metrics firm comScore looks back at the digital highlights of 2009, noting Yahoo's hegemony in the display space, and the continued rise of Facebook in the social networking arena.

Banner ads, nearly given up for dead, are showing new life thanks to developments in the display ad business that could close the gap between ad spending on search and display ads.

When it comes to display advertising on its own site, Facebook is taking full control of its inventory away from Microsoft. Even prior to Microsoft's initial $240 million investment in Facebook in 2007, the two companies had an advertising partnership giving Microsoft the ability to serve display ads on the social network. That was a three-year deal which was up for renewal. The two companies ...

Microsoft said Friday that Bing will power Internet searches for Facebook's 400 million members in an arrangement that returns control of display advertising to the social-networking service.

This could be the year of the display ad. That's not to say that display ads aren't prevalent every year, but Google has only been involved with that for a little while, and if analysts' projections are accurate, this will be the year that Google's display ad business tops $1 billion in sales. Last summer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggested that display ads would be Google's next big billion ...

Prices quoted are for display ads only Each page is divided into 30 blocks The price is determined by the number of blocks the ad occupies. For example:

As analysts say rising demand for Internet display ads will begin paying off for Google in 2010, one asks: "Is this a $10 billion business?"

Popular social site Facebook cut display ad ties with Microsoft Corp., but it is keeping its search relationship alive. Microsoft, which bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook in 2007, has sold the network's banner ads for the past three years. It will continue to power Web search results on Facebook and run search-based text ads. It will also enhance the search experience.

Microsoft says it will continue to be the exclusive provider of Web search on the social networking site.