Yahoo! Publisher Network Archives

Yahoo's contextual product, Yahoo Publisher Network, Yahoo's Google AdSense product, almost three years later is still failing to compete with Google globally. The Yahoo Publisher Network launched on August 3, 2005, back then as a beta, exclusive to US based publishers only. Still, almost three years later, Yahoo refuses to take YPN globally.

Why am I writing about this now? Well, I guess the three threads per day on "When is YPN coming to [location]? finally got to me. I have asked Yahoo in the past when it would be expanding this product. They never really gave me an answer. I assume it has to do with not wanting to deal with certain issues when it comes to handling publisher details outside the US. Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule but on a whole, they have no expanded the product outside of the US.

Will they ever? I would think so - but right now, doesn't seem like something on the schedule. Will forum members ever stop asking? After three years, the threads keep coming - so I doubt it.

We should really get some type of statement from Yahoo on this. Does Yahoo have plans to launch YPN globally? If so, approximately when? Will the roll out be in specific markets, like you did with the new Panama launch?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

In the first quarter of 2008, Click Forensics announced that click fraud has decreased across Google and Yahoo to 27.8% (from 28.3% in Q4 2007).

Is that a number to be worried about? As Barry says on Search Engine Land, these numbers may not account for discounted questionable clicks. Google has said before that click fraud only accounts for 0.02% of clicks.

Meanwhile, forum members believe that the report by Click Forensics may be misleading. After all, they are a traffic quality management firm and as such "has an interest in reporting exagerrated click fraud rates," according to martinibuster. He says that if the numbers were in actuality this high, "I am certain we'd hear about it in the AdWords forum." After all, that translates to millions of dollars lost.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

When Yahoo Publisher Network publishers try going to the YPN Portal, they are now presented with a security prompt. If you look closely at that error, it says that their secure certificate has expired.

It expired a day ago. I guess Yahoo is trying to cut costs wherever they can, including security. Of course I am kidding. Often companies forget to renew their security certificates. I am sure it will be resolved shortly and I am sure the site is still secure, it just doesn't have the Equifax seal of approval.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Adobe has announced Ads for PDF, a system they launched with Yahoo which will allow PDF owners to monetize for their content much like Google AdSense. The CNet News blog goes into detail on the partnership, explaining that it's a PPC program for contextually relevant ads that are displayed to the right of the PDF article. The ads look like Yahoo Publisher Network ads.

(Credit: Adobe Labs)

Currently, the program is in beta and only a few publishers have been invited, but it looks rather cool and Adobe is taking applications for additional beta testers. This is definitely a good move on Yahoo's part.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, Yahoo announced that it had purchased BlueLithium, a behavioral-targeting ad network, for $300 million.

What is BlueLithium, you ask?

BlueLithium is a three-year-old company whose technology tracks consumer behavior as users move from site to site, allowing businesses to deliver more relevant ads. A consumer shopping for environmentally friendly products might see ads for hybrid cars a week later.

At WebmasterWorld, forum members discuss the acquisition and see that Yahoo is moving ahead of Google in the area of behavioral ad-targeting. In fact, Google is not enthusiastic about the idea at all.

Some thoughts as presented by forum members say that YPN will improve with this acquisition:

This is something that could help Yahoo in many ways. Not only will it help them better target their existing ads, but will help bring the ads worldwide and give them another dimension to both YPN and its advertising program.

Others feel that Yahoo! will come out with a much better analytics package:

It also sounds like Yahoo is interested in providing advertisers with the analytics side of the equation above and beyond simple conversion tracking (maybe kind of like Google Analytics on steroids?)

All in all, forum members agree that this is a great move for Yahoo and are excited to see how it will benefit the company. Congratulations, Yahoo, on the acquisition.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

It appears that reports from the WebmasterWorld thread are showing the Yahoo Publisher Network outage we have reported twice is now resolved.

There has not been official confirmation from a Yahoo representative, yet. But posts in the thread suggest it has been fixed.

Payment per click is about back where it was and targeting seems a little better. Keep it up, YPN....

Yahoo fixed the problem. The targeting is MUCH better.

Eeverything is back to normal again. thanx Yahoo. I think when we see some problems with yahoo we all speek and when there is some thing good there are very few responses. this is not fair.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

First, we reported on July 16th that the Yahoo Publisher Network was running slower than usual. The next day, we reported that Yahoo will fix the outage by next week. Now, DigitalPoint Forum members are wondering if they will get the lost revenue due to the outage.

Apparently, the answer is no.

I spoke with a manager at YPN who said they will not be making payments up to the YPN publishers as 'they lost revenue as well'. One begins to wonder if Yahoo gets it...?

The disappointment is obvious. Members think that Yahoo just doesn't get it despite their own losses.

Of course they lost revenue themselves, but they don't care about the publisher enough to accept responsibility and admit they were in the wrong.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, we reported that Yahoo! Publisher Network Suffers Major Ad Serving Slow Down. This has not only caused sites to load slowly due to the ads lagging some page loads, but it has also caused publisher's earnings to drop over the past few days.

Yahoo! has posted a message in the Yahoo! Publisher Network console, saying:

Network Update
You may have noticed a decrease in impressions in your Yahoo! Publisher Network account recently. This is due to a partial outage that occurred during routine maintenance. We are actively addressing the issue and expect improvements by next week. Thanks for your patience.

So by "next week" we can expect improvements, but what about this week?

YahooSarah has also come in to a WebmasterWorld thread saying:

I wanted to chime in briefly to let you know that we are aware of the problems you are experiencing and are working to resolve as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience.

I'll post again when I can confirm that we have resolution.

So we wait.

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Dozens of reports have come from both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld that Yahoo's contextual ad network, the Yahoo! Publisher Network, was running extremely slowing this weekend.

Reportedly, the ads displayed on publisher sites were loading extremely slowly or not loading at all. Here are select quotes from the threads.

My ads have been so poorly served today, about half the time they don't show up at all and the other half only 1 or 2 ads will show up when normally 4 would.

We're removing YPN and replacing it with AdSense now to salvage some revenue until (if/when?) YPN get its act together. A note in our account letting us know what is going on would be nice. Are listening, YPN?

First reports started coming in on Saturday at 8:45 in the morning (EST). It seems like the issues with the ads began to resolve themselves the day after at around 9pm (EST). This is based on the reports at the forums. I do not have official confirmation from Yahoo on this reported outage.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Last month, Yahoo added PayPal as a payment option for the Yahoo Publisher Network publishers.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports publishers now received the money they earned with Yahoo in their PayPal accounts. The payments were first noticed yesterday, so if you are a publisher and selected the PayPal option, check to see if you received your money.

One member was surprised to see that PayPal did not take a percentage of the payment, like they normally do.

Awesome, just got my payment from paypal! Better yet, paypal didn't take anything out of it! It was the full amount! Very cool! I like the paypal payment now! Very very cool!

The YPN payment page clearly says, "you will not be charged a transaction fee for money deposited to your PayPal account from the Yahoo! Publisher Network program."

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

We reported back in April that Yahoo publishers were leaving Yahoo for Google AdSense. Ever since Google took a stance on MFA sites, it seems like many publishers are giving Yahoo another shot, with their Yahoo! Publisher Network product.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has several publishers taking another look at Yahoo! They are finding that the relevancy of the ads are strong and now consistent and the earnings are getting better every day, relative to Google AdSense.

Yesterday, I could not believe it. On one page that I put YPN back on, they were able to serve THREE TARGETED ADS INSTANTLY, no refresh required. I refreshed a few times, and they STUCK (unlike a few months ago)! I tried another page - SAME THING! Another, SAME THING! So I kept going.

Let me try a sample live YPN ad right below this line, just to see:

Don't get me wrong, Yahoo just recently released their own form of smart pricing for their contextual product, they call it a new quality pricing model - where they received some criticism over but mostly praise from their advertisers.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

This post is a mistake - please ignore. I do sincerely apologize.

Randi Harper, a Service Engineer who has been working at Yahoo! since November 2006 (see linkedin profile) has some harsh words for Yahoo's contextual advertising product.

In a blog post on Randi's personal blog, she wrote:

So yeah, I sold my soul once again and added Google Adsense. Don't give me shit. I know I work at Yahoo! - but I don't even know if they offer a service like adsense. Screw it.

This morning, everything looked fine. Ads were for dedicated servers, BSD blogs - I'm cool with all that. That's the type of ad my readers would be interested in.

I just now looked at the ads - and this is a bunch of crap. Ann Coulter is a raging lunatic with a ferret stuck up her ass. Why the hell is my ad bar being pro-democrat and pro-Ann Coulter? I hate both. I'm like, a libertarian or something. If I cared, that is. And I don't. I live in California. We have the goddamn Terminator.

What on earth is going on with these ads? And why has my number of daily visitors increased about 200% to 1,800 - 2000 visitors a day? It doesn't appear that there's a referrer. What gives, internet?

Wow. But Randi isn't the first Yahoo blogger to call out Yahoo's contextual network or be called out for it. See Donna Bogatin tries to be funny. Gets basic facts wrong from Yahoo's infamous blogger, Jeremy Zawodny.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, I reported at Search Engine Land the launch of Quality-Based Pricing. In short, Yahoo will now begin to give advertisers a percentage discount, based on the ad's quality.

What makes up the quality of the ad? Yahoo told me, "publisher conversion rates, traffic source and implementation type." Now this is not live across all keywords yet, but will be in a few months.

When Yahoo told me the criteria, I had to take a second look. Did Yahoo say "publisher conversion rates?" Yes, they did. So I asked Yahoo for more information.

Yahoo is looking at how a publisher may convert for advertisers and adjust the pricing of the ad based on that. I asked Yahoo to clarify:

Rather than the overall number of leads sent to advertisers (conversion rates), the publisher conversion rate is the number of leads that the publisher send to advertisers that actually result in a conversion (e.g., a sale, a sign-up, etc. - whatever the advertiser has defined as a conversion event).

So it is not based simply on click through rate. So I asked what happens when an advertiser doesn't set a conversion metric? Well, since it is based on the "aggregate performance across the Yahoo network," even if one advertiser doesn't set a conversion metric, others probably will and they can use those data points in determining the pricing of the bids.

What do the forums think? Here are some quotes:

Publisher's perspective:

So much for YPN paying out so much better than Adsense.. All of that is over..

As an advertiser this is good news.

I think YPN first needs more the advertisers than the publishers. That's why they are doing this, to keep the comfort level of advertisers. They can run ads in their search engine too

This is just like Smart Pricing in AdSense, if you have low quality traffic (converts badly), you will get paid less.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld - YPN, WebmasterWorld - YSM and DigitalPoint Forums.

Last night, the Yahoo Publisher Network has announced that they are now offering payment to publishers via PayPal.

I logged into my account to see how the set up works. You simple go to your account settings, click on payment options and there is a fourth checkbox now, this one is for PayPal.

PayPal even set up a special URL to show YPNers the benefits of PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/ypnwhypaypal. If you have billing questions, you can find more information at the FAQs.

The ain advantage is you will get your money sooner, if you are a publisher who earns less than $100 per month.

If you use direct deposit, the minimum available balance required to receive payments is $100. With PayPal, it's only $50. You can also earn a return on the deposits in your PayPal account by using PayPal's Money Market Reserve Fund. Please visit the PayPal Web site to learn more about this service.

This is an apparent extension of Yahoo's PayPal partnership on the Search Marketing side. This is also a much requested feature by publishers on both the Yahoo and Google side.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

For what reasons can Yahoo! terminate your Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN) account?

The answer is for any reason they want.

According to the terms and conditions Yahoo (aka Overture) has the right to terminate your account for any reason they deem necessary.

We may suspend or terminate our provision of Matched Ads to you at any time, with or without notice, for any reason or no reason, with or without regard for how well Your Site or Your RSS Feed is performing, the quality of user traffic coming from Your Site or Your RSS Feed, or any other factor, in Overture's sole discretion.

Side note: I am curious why the legal document is still from Overture, aren't they going to legally change everything over to Yahoo! eventually? :)

But you as a publisher can also terminate for any reason you want.

You may terminate any of Your Sites' or Your RSS Feeds' participation in the Beta Program at any time by removing the Ad Code from that web site or RSS feed. Upon your termination, we may but do not have to immediately stop providing Matched Ads to Your Site or Your RSS Feed. If you place the Ad Code back on Your Site or Your RSS Feed, you will be subject to the then-current Terms and Policies.

Can you be terminated for not running the ads on your site? That is the question a DigitalPoint Forums asks. Technically, yes - but highly doubtful.

As one member points out, you can also technically be terminated if "you sneeze and cover your mouth with your left hand."

Keep in mind, Yahoo! terminates accounts if they deem necessary. They typically do this if they feel the publisher is exploiting their advertisers in some sense. Yahoo has done a lot to keep their publishers aware of potential violations through their revolutionary compliance manager section.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

It has been a while since I have compared Yahoo! Publisher Network with Google AdSense. I have seen threads over the past month or so, with complaints on the Yahoo Publisher Network.

A recent WebmasterWorld thread sums up all those complaints into one nice little package.

The issues publishers are noticing with the Yahoo! Publisher Network include:

• Ad targeting is extremely poor and getting worse
• Earnings are about two to for times less than with Google
• Click through rates on the ads are five to ten times less than on Google

Most of the responses to these numbers are in agreement. Most have agreed that Yahoo's ad are not as targeted, drive less of a click through rate and earn them less money.

I have not personally tested any of this but I am curious, so I am placing an ad below and I would love to see how relevant it is. Of course, I am not going to look at the earnings on this ad - so don't click it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Again, I am tired of all the fake rumors and speculation that Yahoo!'s contextual product, Yahoo! Publisher Network, is going international. It is not. Do not believe the blogs and forum threads that say so. It is not happening and won't happen until you see a post over at the YPN Blog, this blog or at JenSense.

It doesn't stop the fake rumors from different blogs and then posted at DigitalPoint Forums from popping up every other day.

Yahoo issued a statement for me:

YPN continues to be an invite-only beta program for US publishers. We have been focused on measuring publisher quality and learning more about the types of sites that perform well in our network. Though we are in the process of finalizing requirements and prioritizing markets for global launch plan, we do not have any immediate plans for international roll out

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yahoo! has sent out a survey, offering $25 for those who complete the 10 minute survey on the Yahoo! Publisher Network. I received the survey and I completed it last night. Most of the questions were straight forward. But as Nintendo at DigitalPoint Forums notes:

One part was a BIG pain! Where it asks how much you make per 1,000 impressions in the networks, it doesn't tell you to keep the $ out of them, yet it has it in the examples, and the error message doesn't tell you to take them out!

I agree, I did not want to spend the time figuring this out, so I made up those numbers. They should of had an easy to use JavaScript calculator or ask the question in an easier method. But honestly, I am not sure if Google AdSense publishers are allowed to share all their statistics...

In any event, this is not the first time Yahoo! sent out YPN surveys. We report it back on July 24, 2006 and February 24, 2006.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

DigitalPoint Forums reports that Yahoo! Publisher Network reports are not reporting 100% accurately. The bottom line figures seem to be correct, but when you break out the reports by channel or domain, the numbers don't seem to add up.

The first post was on March 13th and said:

seems like it stoped tracking my channels/domains correctly if you see the TOTALS for the day its ok, but when u separate them, there like pennies insides and it suppose to be a way higher number, anyone else has this problem? with wrong channel/domain tracking? but totals are still ok?

A few others have confirmed the issue and one said they received a response from Yahoo saying:

Thank you for participating in the Yahoo! Publisher Network Beta program. We apologize for any inconvenience the problem with your URL performance report may have caused you. We are currently working on a resolution. As soon as we learn of a status or a resolution we will be sure to contact you with an update. We are unable to provide you with performance data on individual URL's until this issue is corrected. Once corrected, we will only be able to provide you with this data going forward via the portal.

I assume it is not a huge issue, since the thread is not incredibly active but it does appear to be an issue.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network randomly adds polls to the YPN console for publishers. Recently, I think about a week ago, Yahoo! replaced the last poll with a new one that asks. "When developing a new web site at a new domain, how do you decide the site topic (please check one)?"

The options given are:

• I base it on an extension of an existing web site I already have
• I want a new web site based on my personal interests
• I want a new web site based on what’s getting blog/PR coverage
• I want a new web site that I think is a ground-breaking idea
• I want a new web site that I think will drive revenue
• Other (please specify)

Honestly, I would not have noticed the new poll if it wasn't for a someone pointing it out.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

One common thread you see come up a lot in Yahoo! Publisher Network forum threads, especially at DigitalPoint Forums, as partnership threads. Partnership threads are threads started by "publishers" who cannot get a Yahoo! Publisher Network account for one of many reasons and asks to partner with one who has an account.

Why can't these publisher's get accounts? Can be because the publisher is based outside the US, and Yahoo! currently does not allow any country outside the US participate in this program yet. It can be because their site was rejected. It can be because they had an account and it was suspended due to violation of the terms of service.

It worries me when reading these threads. Here is an example of a recent looking for partner thread.

I have a lot of sites and i am looking for a partner and want to get into Publisher Network

My sites get a lot of traffic from United States and Europe .
99% of content is in english .

I am ready to split my own revenue 60-40 with you .

If you are interested please PM me or post your reply here .

Typically the share may be 50/50 or in this case 60/40.

There is a thread at DigitalPoint Forums telling publishers to beware of such partnerships. The reasoning used in the thread, in my opinion, is off. My main reason why one should be worried is that it is your account on the line. If they get your account suspended, then you are left with nothing, while all they need to do is start another "looking for partner" thread.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Almost every day, there is a post in the YPN DigitalPoint Forum asking when is YPN (Yahoo! Publisher Network) going international.

Some speculate that the fact that Yahoo! is taking Panama international, that it means, YPN is also going international by next quarter.

This is not the case. As far as I know, Yahoo! has never come out and said, YPN will be offered in Canada, UK, or any other country, outside of the United States, ever.

We are still waiting for an official statement from Yahoo! on the international roll out dates for YPN. I suspect, the Panama roll out will happen first, and then when that is settled, Yahoo! will work on the YPN roll out.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, here and here.

Last week I reported that More Yahoo! Publisher's Noticing Compliance Manager Warnings. Well, that was a mistake, Yahoo! did not mean to send out all those warnings to all those publishers.

YahooSarah said in the updated DigitalPoint Forums thread:

We were experiencing some problems with the compliance manager status page but we resolved it yesterday. For anyone who got an email regarding YPN's compliance policy, you should log-in to the portal to double check and make sure you do not have any outstanding actions.

Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks
YahooSarah

So log back into Publisher Network and check to make sure you don't have that compliance manager warning.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has more discussion on recent compliance manager warnings to Yahoo! Publisher Network users.

Yahoo! added the, almost revolutionary, compliance manager November 20, 2006. We then saw it in action with screen captures on December 22, 2006. There were some compliance manager bugs that were fixed quickly.

Did you notice a compliance manager warnings? If so, Yahoo! should be showing you what the issue is and give you enough data to take the necessary action to fix the issue. If not, then you can be banned from the network.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: These notifications were false and mistakes. Many have received emails from Yahoo! apologizing:

Normally, the Compliance Manager page in your Yahoo! Publisher Network account will only appear if there's been a violation of our Terms and Conditions. However, we are currently addressing a system-wide issue causing this page to appear in accounts that haven't violated our guidelines. We regret that we're unclear as to when this will be resolved but advise you to disregard the notice if there?s nothing indicated on your Compliance Manager page itself. We apologize for any inconvenience caused to you.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Yahoo! has added a dedicated representative in the search forums to respond to Yahoo! Search Marketing questions. The new representative was introduced by YahooSarah in both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

YahooSarah, who has been managing both Yahoo! Search Marketing threads and Yahoo! Publisher Network threads has enlisted YahooPete to focus pretty much on the Yahoo! Search Marketing side of things. Now, YahooSarah will be able to focus most of her efforts to the Yahoo! Publisher Network side of things.

YahooSarah said:

All, I’ve got some good news to share and wanted to start a thread here. Since we’ve rolled out our new advertising system, my goal was to be even more engaged in message board discussions to help you with questions or concerns. I think this community embraced that goal, because I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with posts and private emails- thanks ;-)

To help grow our involvement on the boards even more, I’ve recruited a colleague of mine to serve as a new rep for the boards, YahooPete. He will have more time to dedicate to issues specifically about Yahoo! Search Marketing, while I start to focus more on threads about the Yahoo! Publisher Network (doing both took quite a bit of time, and this is only a part of what I do for Yahoo!). I’m still around though, so you may see me chime in from time to time.

We really do appreciate all the feedback you have given us over the past few months and we look forward to continuing the dialogue. Welcome YahooPete- good luck!

YahooSarah

YahooPete said his introductory hello; saying,

Thanks so much for the kindness. I am looking forward to partcipating in the discussion threads. All my best, YahooPete

Welcome YahooPete, oh and trust me, I will be watching you very closely.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

There is a concept that when teaching children you need to be careful in the way you act in front of the kid. Kids learn by example more than they learn by what they are told. This also applies to adults - really does.

A WebmasterWorld thread notes that a person spotted a a Yahoo! Publisher Network terms of service violation on a "big site." He said, hey, if this site is doing it, does that means it is OK?

No, it is not OK.

The specific violation is that Yahoo! doesn't allow you to run other contextual ad programs on the same page as a Yahoo! contextual ad. Google recently removed that clause from their TOS but added a different restriction. So Yahoo! can and would boot you, if they caught you violating this program policy.

So if you see stuff on other sites, be it contextual related, PPC related or SEO related - do not assume it is allowed just because they did it. Heck, BMW spammed they got kicked out of the index. If you would have copied them, you would have been kicked out too, if caught. Now, you are now BMW, and unlike you, they got back in within days, because they are big - but you are not. So be careful.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The YPN Blog posted that they have updated their program policies to limit the number of ads you can use on a page by page basis. Before, there was no specific limit on the number of Yahoo! Publisher Network ads you can place on a page. Friday, that changes to a limit of three ads per page.

The Ad page may contain a maximum of three ad units.

I am not sure how many real sites had more than three YPN blocks on their pages anyway. So this should not be a huge change for the majority of publishers.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday we reported that Yahoo! Publisher Network Seems To Be Showing Completely Unique Ads. then, Yahoo! posted at the YPN blog Dupe-less-ity explaining that "you and your users should see fewer duplicate ads starting today." So they confirmed it officially.

But since then, publishers have been reporting more and more irrelevant, uncontextually targeted, Yahoo! ads being displayed on their site. Is it an inventory thing? I am not sure.

Here are some of the reports:

but now I'm getting horrible, totally unrelated ads. Not happy, at the moment.

Ditto. No more duplicates, but also no relevancy.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

One of the biggest complaints over Yahoo!'s contextual network, the Yahoo! Publisher Network, was that when you used multiple ad blocks on a page, it would sometimes show the same ad from ad unit 1 in ad unit 2. Reports via DigitalPoint Forums have been noticing that this has been happening less and less as the days go on.

Ads no longer repeat ad nauseam across your ad blocks on a given page. Before, depending on how many ad blocks you had on a given page, the same ad that showed up in the #1 ad queue position would show up in all the #1 ad queue position of all your ad blocks on that page. Not anymore. I'm no longer seeing repeated ads across the ad blocks.

After that post, it appeared that things went downhill again, but then recent posts have shown to confirm this.

I'm noticing more and more geotargeted ads, and no repeating ads too.

No repeats, CTRs are up by 75%. I'm happy.

3 bocks of 5 ads each and they are showing 15 different ads.

Which is very good improvement.

No official word from Yahoo! yet on this, I will track the thread.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: A Yahoo representative has confirmed to me via email that improvements have been made to YPN ads and to keep an eye out on the YPN blog for details.

Update: Here is that blog post at the YPN Blog.

Since I just wrote Open Advice to Yahoo! Regarding New Search Marketing Tool, Panama, I figure I highlight a WebmasterWorld thread that offers Yahoo! advice on their publisher network product. Here are some of the ideas from the thread:

• Ad Link Units (like Google Adsense offers)
• YPN for search and sitesearch (like Google Adsense offers)
• YPN referral links for advertisers to sign up with Overture (Like Google Adsense offers)
• Open the ad market to other countries. You can start with the other English-speaking countries, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
• Better targeting
• Option to delete old channels
• Option to enable/disable RON ads
• Quick and easy tool for management of multiple accounts ala adwords editor
• Better contextual targeting.
• Unique ads in every ad unit.
• The ability of advertisers to select which sites they'd like to advertise ("Advetise on this Site").
• Image banner ads!
• and more...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network is the system which allows bloggers and other web content providers to host ads from Yahoo! Search marketing's contextual advertising product. YPN has been ramping up its exposure greatly over the past few months, thanks to a solid PR effort. They had an excellent private party for publishers at Pubcon in Las Vegas, and followed up with an equally well received party for all attendees at SES Chicago. YPN regularly polls it users for feedback on important topics. Additionally, they have been posting quite regularly to their blog, including introducing a new series of posts which promise to give a summary of the results of their polls.

A thread at Digital Point forums discusses the latest poll offered to its publishers, and the biggest choice seems to be "Traffic" so far. Some seem to feel that many of the other choices lead to additional traffic, such as "Increased focus on good content." Since YPN presents this poll via login to the system, we have chosen not to present all the choices, and will let Yahoo! do that on their schedule.

If you are a member of YPN and have voted or have your thoughts on the best answers, please visit the Digital Point thread and share your answer and any reasons behind it.

YPN users have been experiencing some strange compliance issues with their accounts the last few days. Barry reported on the Compliance Manager in YPN last year and some of the compliance issues that start back then. The issues were fixed, but just like a Rocky movie they are back again for another fight to confuse webmasters with compliance issues. Yahoo has stepped up the level of transparency with publishers and many are happy about this situation. But what is going on with these compliance alerts Yahoo?

A thread on Digitalpoint Forums tracks these new compliance issues. One of the members says that the YPN representatives know the issue exists and are working on fixing them. One member even goes to compliment the work of the YPN staff saying "Everything is well and under control. Gosh, I love YPN staff..." Good to hear every now and then. Despite the warm and fuzzes, the issues are still going on. One of biggest fears is that users will get kicked out of the program for not being in compliance for no reason whatsoever. However none of this has happened yet and I doubt highly it will occur.

For those with issues, please contact your YPN representative and keep up with updates on the Digitalpoint Forums thread.

On November 20th, Yahoo! announced they will be a bit more transparent by providing something they call Compliance Manager. What does it do? It tells you if there are problem areas on your site, stuff you have done on purpose or by accident that warrants your ads to be taken down. Compliance manager gives publishers a way to take corrective action, something not done before in the contextual ad game.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread notes that people are now seeing it work. People with problem areas are being notified via the compliance manager of problems on their pages or sites. Some said that it was presented to them, but was a bug and was soon fixed. Some said that it was helpful in correcting the issue. So what does it look like? Well, there is one screen capture at the thread but Yahoo sent me samples in the past.

The portal homepage will show you this message, if you have compliance issues:

You can then click on a link in the message to see the compliance manager report that looks like this:

I think this is great, the transparency supersedes all other programs to date.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread discusses Yahoo!'s gift for the 2006 holiday season. Yahoo! sent all publishers and advertisers a email holiday card, which you can see at http://brand.yahoo.com/snow/. Yahoo! sent some advertisers a Yahoo! sweatshirt and USB drink cooler. It looks like:

Yahoo! also sent some bigger advertisers a "fancy corkscrew kit from Leeds."

I have more details on Yahoo!'s gift to me at my personal blog, Cartoon Barry.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.