Yahoo announced the closure of two major sections of its U.S. Classifieds service as eBay continues to expand its classifieds businesses in the U.S. Yahoo had closed its US and Canadian auction sites in June, and it announced this week it was closing the "For Sale" and "Pets" sections of the US Classifieds site "to better serve our valued customers through other industry-leading Yahoo! marketplace offerings."

Yahoo Classifieds' "For Sale" section contains such categories as Antiques & Collectibles; Bikes; Boats; Clothing, Accessories & Shoes; Jewlry & Watches; and Movies & DVD. The Pets section allows users to list live animals for sale. The two sections will close after October 10, 2007, and the last day to post a new ad is September 10, 2007. Yahoo will continue to provide customer service for the two sections through January 10, 2008.

Yahoo will continue to operate its other Classifieds sections, which include Autos; Hot Jobs; Housing; Personals; and Tickets.

Meanwhile, eBay expanded its Gumtree classifieds site in three U.S. cities - Boston, New York and Chicago, after rolling out its international Kijiji classifieds service in the U.S. just last month. It also owns about 25 percent of the popular Craigslist website.

eBay has invested heavily in classifieds sites over the past few years, particularly internationally, and told investors last year the business was growing at close to triple-digit rates. eBay CEO Meg Whitman said eBay was monetizing some of its classified sites via contextual advertising, such as Marketplaats in the Netherlands which serves up Google contextual ads.

A search on Gumtree's Boston site for "TV" brings back no listings, but does bring back five sponsored links served up by Google.

eBay and Google, like eBay and Yahoo, are both partners and competitors. eBay has been serving up Yahoo contextual ads on the eBay.com website in an exclusive ad partnership deal. eBay has a similar deal with Google for its international properties.

http://classifieds.yahoo.com