It's nice to see Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) licking its chops instead of its wounds.

The online giant renewed its deal with Verizon (NYSE:VZ), encouraging Verizon's broadband subscribers to lean on a co-branded portal as their home page of choice. In return, Yahoo! shares a chunk of the ad revenue generated from the landing page with Verizon.

It's all about the virtual land grab. Locking up high-traffic sites is the key to encouraging advertisers to earmark more of their online advertising budget to specific players. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the undisputed leader, enhancing its market-share-leading search engine with ad-syndication deals on sites like News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS) MySpace, and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL, but don't count out Yahoo! and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). They may be the distant silver and bronze medalists in online advertising, but they've had no problem landing partners like Facebook or Digg under the right terms.

This particular dot-com hookup isn't exclusive, since both Yahoo! and Verizon are allowed to see other people. Verizon offers other portals a crack at its subscribers, even though its collaboration with Yahoo! is the top option.

The deal also isn't getting in the way of discussions reportedly taking place with Google for Verizon's wireless business. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone (NYSE:VOD), but the telecom seems to have no problem doing a little window-shopping to find the best fit for each of its online marketing streams.

Will this deal move the needle at Yahoo!? Of course not. Yahoo! is too big for that. However, it does keep Yahoo! in the news in a favorable light. These days, that's a relative -- and refreshing -- victory.

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