Yahoo Partners With Healthline

Heathline Networks will provide the underlying technology to power Yahoo's health site.

The two companies on Thursday announced a partnership in which Healthline's proprietary semantic taxonomy will drive the health-specific search and navigation on the Yahoo site. In addition, the Web portal agreed to feature Healthline's clinical applications, including SymptomSearch, TreatmentSearch, and DocSearch. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal provides Yahoo with technology that currently delivers online health information to more than 90 million users a month, according to Yahoo. The partnership is also expected to provide "targeted opportunities" for advertisers.

"Healthline brings a powerful health information technology platform along with unique applications and development expertise that will help Yahoo deliver a greater experience for our consumers and advertisers," Damon Cronkey, senior director for autos, health and tech at Yahoo, said in a statement.

Healthline, based in San Francisco, plans to build upon the content already on the Yahoo Health channel. The revamped channel will be rolled out this spring.

Yahoo will also become a partner in the Healthline Media Network, an Internet-based health-advertising network. The partnership will make it possible for advertisers on the network to run display ads on the Yahoo Health channel.

Yahoo reaches 600 million people worldwide each month, including 75% of U.S. Internet users, according to the company. Its health channel is the third most visited Internet health destination, with more than 11 million unique visitors each month.

More than six in 10 U.S. adults have used the Web to search for health information, according to a recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics. In addition, nearly half of adults have accessed a Website that provides information on a specific medical condition or problem.