Yahoo! Search Marketing Archives

It is true, Yahoo is dropping paid inclusion by years end, as I reported at Search Engine Land. Yahoo issued a statement, I'll cut out the part where they say they are committed to search and show you the relevant part:

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.

There has always been confusion over the paid inclusion program at Yahoo. In fact, it changed names a few times. There were reports that banned sites were able to be included in Yahoo via this program. Like I said at Search Engine Land, accepting money to be included in a free/unbiased search engine, just seems wrong.

I for one think this is a good move, although I know many SEOs who love this program.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Last week, we reported that a fake Yahoo employee might be picking up unsuspecting SEM clients. Well, I was wrong, at least about the forum person being a fake employee of Yahoo, he is.

The issue is, Yahoo first told me this does not appear to be a Yahoo employee. After I fed the email address and IP info to Yahoo, they confirmed this person was a Yahoo employee. Why is there any issue? Well, it appears that this person did not have Yahoo's approval to be posting such things in the forum.

There is currently a Yahoo representative in the forum who is backed by Yahoo's PR team. Maybe this new Yahoo employee had good intentions, but it is always dangerous for these reps to venture out by themselves in such territory.

I am not sure if this Yahoo rep was doing this out of good intentions or to make some side cash. Yahoo has not given me that level of detail. In fact, I have asked Yahoo if there will be any action taken against this employee. I am waiting to hear back on that question.

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced two main changes that went into place yesterday.

(1) The most important change was that a new pricing algorithm is in place. Yahoo said, "we're now expanding the adjustments we make to our click charges based on our assessment of the performance of traffic coming from sources within our distribution network." Yahoo added, "based on our analysis, we expect that most advertisers will see click charges drop or remain unchanged as a result of this change, while a small fraction of advertisers may experience an increase in click charges."

(2) Yahoo added a report to weed out how Yahoo's partners are performing, which gives you the tools to block underperforming partners. The report is named the Ad Delivery Report and it allows you to "view information about the URLs where your ads are being displayed. You can then use this information to help inform your decisions regarding which domains to block using the “Blocked Domains” feature."

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

I've spotted a few posts in the forums complaining about how Yahoo is reporting very few clicks and impressions on both the Yahoo Search Marketing side and Yahoo Publisher Network side. The simple answer is that this may not a bug, but rather a reporting delay due to a maintenance update.

Yes, there is a lot of confusion about this update, since there was no mention of it on either the official YPN Blog or the YSM Blog, but there is a notification that an update is coming this coming weekend (not the past weekend). So there are rumors that Yahoo put the wrong date on the notification.

If you login to the YPN console, you will see a notification placed on the 21st that warns of an maintenance period on the 28th. Here is the message:

Notification of Scheduled Maintenance - Beginning 8/28/09

On Friday August 28, 2009 there will be a temporary interruption in the ability to access the Yahoo! Publisher Network portal. This comes as a part of planned system maintenance, and will take place on Friday Aug. 28, 2009 from 6:00 pm PDT to Saturday Aug. 29, 2009 2:00 am PDT. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience.

Again, there are rumors that the maintenance is going on now, which is why there is a reporting lag on both the YPN and YSM side.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo and Microsoft have finally announced their search deal, after years of negotiation. In short, if the deal is approved by regulators, Yahoo Search will be powered by Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search Marketing (aka Panama) will be powered by Microsoft adCenter.

For SEMs, you need to know when this will happen. Best case scenario, the deal will be complete in early 2010, the longest it can take for full implementation is two years. The integration will begin in the United States with search and then with search ads. The integration will then expand to other countries and regions.

The search brand at Yahoo will remain to be "Yahoo Search" but it will have a label at the bottom of the page that says "Powered by Bing." Nothing is changing now, not until they get regulatory approval, and then when they get that approval, they will begin pushing out the integration. So SEMs and SEOs have time to prepare. They won't have to worry about managing both adCenter campaigns and Panama campaigns, just adCenter (and of course, Google AdWords). I assume this means that the Yahoo Publisher Network is dead and really dead (not just in action, but legally dead).

I spent some of the morning posting the key financial points at Search Engine Land and now Danny and Greg are posting their notes on the conference call now.

I assume the forums will heat up throughout the days going forward. But again, this will take time, so no need to panic right now. Remember, Yahoo first started off as a directory, then they powered their search off of that directory, then worked out a deal with Google to power their search, then dropped Google for their own search engine and now is dropping their own search for Microsoft's Bing. Who knows, maybe in 5 years (even though this is a ten year deal), maybe Yahoo will go back to Google. :)

More news coverage at Techmeme and forum discussion at Sphinn, Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced that Google is not the only ones testing favorite icons (favicons) in the search ads. Yahoo said they are doing a limited test of favicons in the search ads in order to give their searchers one more tool to "know they’re really looking at your site, which will improve the search experience." If it increases CTR and quality score, they may expand the test and may keep it.

Here is a picture of one ad:

Google has been testing favicons in search ads and favicons in search results this year. I have not seen them recently, in either the ads or free listings, but they were testing it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A month ago, Yahoo made some serious enhancements to the search marketing platform, improving the local targeting capabilities amongst other features.

WebmasterWorld moderator, werty, has been gathering local data since the feature has been released and has posted the somewhat disappointing results. werty said in a WebmasterWorld thread:

Currently we are using "North American YSM" and should only be getting North American traffic, but if I look through our logs I can see that 29% of the traffic is coming from foreign countries.

I could see how maybe 2-3% could come from proxies or things like that, but this traffic is highly suspect.

Werty goes on to share:

Of those 2061 that we received we were billed for 1894. This is roughly 8% of "bad traffic" that is being caught or screened by Yahoo!

There is another 21% that is not being caught, screened or refunded.

The scariest/funniest part of this is; Of the 2061 clicks, only 43 came from Yahoo! or ca.search.yahoo.com. That is 2.1% of traffic we received or 2.3% of traffic we paid for.

These are some serious insights and hopefully this is only a bug that is impacting this individual advertiser. I do highly doubt it though and I wonder if Yahoo will respond to this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Yahoo responded in the thread asking:

werty, are you using the Blocked Continents tool? It allows you to select the continents from which you do not wish to receive traffic. (Our lawyers make me say this next part: The accuracy of the Blocked Continents feature is not guaranteed, and may vary depending on a number of factors, such as the quality and type of data in the traffic stream that we receive. For example, if a searcher is using a product or service that makes the IP address "anonymous," our systems will be unable to determine his/her location, and therefore will be unable to apply continent blocking.)

Follow these steps to turn on or modify Blocked Continents:

1. Click on the “Administration” tab.
2. Click on the “Account General Information” link
3. In the Blocked Continents field, select the checkbox for each continent to block. You cannot block your own continent, meaning the continent included in the market of your account.
4. Click “Save Changes”.

As expected, yesterday, Yahoo launched several enhancements to their search marketing platform that brings them up to speed with many of the competing products and in some way, surpasses some features of their competitors. The main issue for Yahoo is that Google still has all the traffic.

The features include:

I have an incredibly detailed walk through with screen shots of the new features at Search Engine Land.

Honestly, I feel bad for Yahoo. The announcement went live at 4pm (EST) yesterday and no one cares, no one is talking about it. It made it to Techmeme via a manual tip and editor addition. There are three forum threads on the topic, all started by a Yahoo representative and only one response in all three posts and that response is extremely anti-Yahoo. Yahoo, please do something to bring back your appeal!

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

A WebmasterWorld thread has complaints from Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers on the conversions, or lack there of, from Yahoo Shopping.

For example, if you do a search on Yahoo Shopping for ipods you may see Yahoo Search ads at the top of the product listings. Here is a screen capture:

As you can see, it takes some scrolling to start seeing Yahoo Shopping results. And some Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers are not happy with their ads showing up in Yahoo Shopping. They want a way to opt out of that Yahoo property.

A WebmasterWorld moderator said, "shopping.yahoo.com provides me with horrible conversions. After about 9 pm EST, all of a sudden I get a barrage of shopping.yahoo clicks and never get any sales." A preferred member agreed, "I agree. I have horrible numbers for shopping.yahoo.com. I want to block them but I can not. The traffic is not good for the campaigns I run."

Control is key for advertisers, especially in online and in search.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Many Yahoo Search advertisers are reporting that Yahoo has decreased the minimum bid requirements on some keywords in their campaigns over the past couple days. A WebmasterWorld thread has several advertisers confirming this activity.

In fact, I received a message from Yahoo with the exact same notification on February 24th at 8:37 PM. The Yahoo Search Marketing "alert" said:

Minimum bid requirements have decreased for 'Company Name' [account #]. Some of your inactive Sponsored Search keywords are now active. Review bids now.

Why has Yahoo reduced the bids for some keywords? Don't they want to make more money?

Well, it seems that some keywords were "inactive" and were making Yahoo no money at all. Possibly by decreasing the minimum bids, Yahoo has reactivated these keywords and is now capable of making some money on these keywords. Thus activating hundreds, if not thousands of new ads into the search marketplace automatically, but with giving notification.

In January, Yahoo had the nerve to make changes to advertiser campaigns after there was an outcry already. So clearly this is still going on, but Yahoo is at least sending "alerts" now.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, Yahoo announced new ad solutions for advertisers to better target and reach potential customers. I wrote about the news at Search Engine Land, but let me sum it up here quickly.

Yahoo is offering three new offerings:

• Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities;
• Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser's site; and
• Enhanced Targeting capabilities for search advertising, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search.

Advertisers can use search data to target display ads to them on other properties. This is in the realm of merging search ads with behavioral ads. Plus, Yahoo will be joining Google and Microsoft in giving marketers the ability to target search ads based on time of day (day parting) and using demographic data such as gender, age, income and so on.

To my surprise, the discussion around this news at WebmasterWorld is mostly positive. I would have thought that marketers would be skeptical and a bit sarcastic in their discussion about the new offerings. But I was wrong, marketers seem excited about the news.

WebmasterWorld moderator, eWhisper, said:

I love these new offering from yahoo. Yahoo has had some of the best behavioral targeting results for display ads of anyone out there. I've seen interstitials combined with behavioral targeting break double digit CTRs on Y.

If they can take that same targeting to search, and make a search/banner connection - they will have a great product.

I'm hoping they combine this with attribution management to show when banner are display/clicked how it affects your search CTR and eventual conversions.

Looking forward to exploring this one.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog has officially announced the launch of video and image ads within the search results. Currently, you can see the results for searches at Yahoo on esurance or pedigree. Here is a screen shot of it in action:

A search for Pedigree returns a video ad at the top:

Clicking on the video will open up a video player:

Yahoo has been testing video outs with select partners for a while. We saw it with Honda video ads in March of last year.

Google has also been doing this, the most recent post we have on that is also from March of last year.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some Yahoo advertisers are upset with what they call a recent drop in traffic from Yahoo's ad network.

Others confirmed what this advertiser said, saying that his traffic is "way down" from the Yahoo Search Marketing network.

We know Yahoo has cancelled the content network in the UK and there are many rumors that Yahoo will cut more in this area.

If you are a Yahoo advertiser, please take the poll and let us know:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I have never seen before. Should you ever consider using abbreviations in a title or description of your search ads? Here is the question from the advertiser:

I'm writing a PPC headline and would like to know about abbreviating a word in the title instead of spelling it out completely.

For example; 'flr' instead of 'floor'...Reason is to save space in order to fit copy all on one line.

I would say that this would be a no no, in this case. But in some cases, you might be able to pull it off. Stock symbols work in many cases, some abbreviations are really well known, such as FYI.

The issue isn't with Google not allowing it but your CTR dropping due to people not understanding your ad. If your CTR drops, your quality score may drop and it may result in paying more for a ad position you would have otherwise paid less for. Plus, often, a lower CTR leads to less sales.

But as nethy said, it is something you can experiment with and see if it works for your campaigns. Just watch it carefully and be ready to pull the plug if you notice a drop in your metrics.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Remember when Yahoo sent out notifications about updating their Yahoo Search Marketing terms of service, which basically gave them the right to "optimize" campaigns without consent or warning? There was a huge outcry for such activity, even though this was an issue back in June 2008. They even were bold enough to turn on the content network when the campaign manager specifically turned it off.

Just a couple hours ago, Yahoo wrote a blog post named The Truth about Account Optimizations. So, the title seems to imply that all the bloggers, including us, Andy Beal, Nathania Johnson and many many others are liars or very misinformed.

Yahoo said, although there was an outcry, they have seen great results. Here are those results, they said they improved:

• Since June 2008, we have optimized approximately 2% of all active accounts and created approximately 20,000 new ads.
• The acceptance rate of changes we have made is roughly 80%, which we believe indicates the changes have been helpful.
• The time needed to make optimization changes to accounts has been reduced from approximately ten days to one day.

Yahoo then goes through bullet points of the misconceptions we, bloggers, have been spewing about the program. Well, really - if you look at what they say, I don't think we, bloggers, are misinformed at all. You auto-opt in these advertisers, without notification that they are in this program. Then you tell us that you can "opt out," but they don't know they were in this program in the first place. You say you notify advertisers within 24 hours, but either the emails are caught by spam filters or most don't get these notifications. They said it is not designed for large advertisers who "actively manage their accounts," but yet - I know large advertisers who were hit by this, I guess "large" and "actively" are subjective terms. Yahoo said they would never switch on your content match if you turn it off, but we have reports that they did in fact do this (unconfirmed reports, to be fair).

I am not sure, I just think Yahoo could of handled this situation better. (1) They could have notified advertisers of a way to opt out of this, before it even was turned on. (2) They could have been quicker to respond to these issues. (3) They could have worked with us, the bloggers, as opposed to make us look like liars.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

I am honestly surprised I have not seen more discussion around this topic in the forums recently. A couple days ago, I reported at Search Engine Land that Yahoo is shutting down Content Match in the UK, Germany and other locations outside of the US. The last day for advertisers outside of the US to bid on Content Match ads would be March 31st. That directly translates to less inventory for Yahoo to place in their Yahoo Publisher Network. Yes, the Google AdSense competitor.

Yahoo sent an email to their advertisers, saying:

As a valued client we are writing to give you advance notice of the closure of our Content Match product in Europe.

The decision to close Content Match underlines our commitment to focus on our Sponsored Search and Display business and to simplify our solutions to deliver a high ROI for our advertisers.

Content Match will close on 31 March 2009, after which the product will no longer be supported. All Advertisers should therefore opt out of the Content Match marketplace by this date. Your account manager will be happy to assist you.

So, Yahoo has decided to commit their focus to "sponsored search" and the "display business" and then do away with their contextual ads? Really? Is this just an international commitment or is it a company wide change?

Is Google going to be competitor free in the contextual space? I know, there are many small contextual ad networks, but the only ones that can really compete would be Yahoo and Microsoft. Microsoft's ContentAds are still in limited beta and currently have a long way to get up to par against Google. Many were not happy with Yahoo, but it was a great alternative.

Are these the signs of the end to Yahoo's Publisher Network?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Yahoo emailed me to say that Content Match is only closing in Europe.

The past week has been a rough one for Yahoo, in terms of advertiser relations. First they emailed notifications of the terms and conditions, which got them in major hot water. Then even after the hot water, they had the nerve to make changes to advertiser's campaigns and keywords without permission or notification.

But it doesn't end there. Over the weekend, we are getting reports from WebmasterWorld from at least two different advertisers that Yahoo has turned on the advertiser's content network, even though the content network has been explicitly turned off by the advertiser in the master account settings. The interesting point is, that YahooPete, an official Yahoo representative said this should not be the case. Let me quote you:

I checked with the folks here who are managing the Account Optimization program, and they told me that turning Content Match on or off is not part of the program. So while I can’t say for sure why your settings might have changed, it wasn’t due to the optimization program.

As Zamboni pointed out, the “master setting” under the Administration tab in your account has the ultimate control over your account: If that account-level setting is set to “Off,” you should not receive any Content Match traffic in your entire account, no matter what the settings are at the campaign or ad group levels. We designed it this way to give advertisers more control of their tactic settings, so that certain campaigns could be set up solely for Content Match traffic, and others solely for Sponsored Search traffic.

But soon later, an advertiser claimed that this is not true. He said, "just a week or so back, I noticed that content was turned on for one of my campaigns even though content was set to off in "master setting"."

Now, it is hard to tell who is telling the truth and who is not. The bottom line, as we have been stressing throughout the week, is to make sure to check your accounts and make sure your ad dollars are being well spent.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This week I reported how Yahoo notified advertisers of a change to their terms and conditions, which explicitly gave Yahoo legal rights to change advertisers campaigns and keywords without permission from the advertiser. In fact, this has been the case since June of last year, but it wasn't noticed by the masses until now.

This caused a major outcry by SEMs this week. Andy Beal felt embarrassed for Yahoo, that they would do this. Loren Baker kind of implied this a way for Yahoo to sneak money from advertisers, without them noticing. And back in June, I was really not happy with this change - who would be.

All in all, we did not hear a peep from Yahoo on the matter. I did not see a Yahoo representative come into a forum to respond. I did not receive a phone call or email from a Yahoo representative on the matter. Nothing from Yahoo, and I am a bit surprised by that.

To make things worse, Yahoo has the nerve to go into a Search Engine Watch moderator's advertiser's account and make changes without telling them. A Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports that Mel, a moderator who knows a heck of a lot on PPC, noticed that after all these reports, Yahoo changed his campaigns. Let me quote you:

I never received ANY communication that this had happened - no email, no call, no nothing. I found out about it when I logged in to YSM and saw a note in the YSM Dashboard saying that "new campaigns had been uploaded."

To make things worse, they made horrid changes to the account, including maxing up the bids to $1! Here are those changes:

• They upload an optimization into a new, active campaign, with new ad groups and keywords. They do not change current campaigns. Our client's campaign had a daily budget cap of $15 (not a huge deal, except that I don't want to spend $0.01 on something that I haven't seen or approved).
• The optimization for this particular client was awful - theme & ad copy was super generic, no features and benefits in the ad, looked like the work of someone in their first day at Yahoo. Keywords were even worse. Let's say the advertiser is a video rental store (not the real situation). Yahoo had them bidding on "buy videos" type keywords. WTF??
• Max bids were set at $1.00. Yikes.
• No tracking was appended to any of the URLs. We use a proprietary system with keyword-level URLs, and of course Yahoo is not privy to this information. So we have no way to see if the campaign was effective or not.

Back to the WebmasterWorld thread, one advertiser had to plead with Yahoo to promise not to make changes to his account. He described the process as very frustrating, here it is:

I called my rep and asked them to ensure that we would not have any changes made. At first, I was told that accounts could not be excluded. I raised a fuss and was told to submit an email request, to which I received a confirmation that no changes would be made to my account with my permission. Haven't seen any, so I guess they're following the rules.

The good news is that Mel, the moderator, said when she argued with his rep, the rep was very good about "opting" him out of this. She called his "Yahoo rep and she assured me we would be opted out of auto-optimization in the future." So get on the phone and call your rep as soon as possible.

Yahoo, seriously, how can you do this. It is one thing to change the terms and conditions for legal reasons, but to actually go in and make these changes?

No, this is not the first time we have heard rumors of Yahoo representatives "auto-optimizing" accounts, but to "auto-optimize" after the outcry, that just makes things a hundred times worse.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Last night, Yahoo sent out an email to their Search Marketing advertisers, notifying them that they have updated the terms and conditions. So I compared the current version to the archived version to see what significant changes have been made.

Here is a list of changes that I found, I may have missed some, but I think I got the major items.

(1) Removed "Overture" from the document. Yahoo bought Overture back in 2003.
(2) Removed clause "use any Program in connection with any ultrahazardous activity, or any other activity for which its failure might result in serious property damage, serious bodily injury, or death, nor."
(3) Removed a clause but moved a dedicated section to this API stuff: "In connection with a Program, if you have been granted API Access or you have been provided Analytics, you agree to be bound by the API Access & Analytics Program Terms, below."
(4) Removed clause "provided, however, that you may display different content to different users so long as it is relevant to the Selected Ad Groups and ads), and"
(5) Some changes to the localized legalize in 12.
(6) Added "Upon termination of these Analytics Program Terms or the Program Terms of the Program for which you have been provided Analytics, (i) you must promptly remove or have removed the Analytics from your website(s) and all items under your possession, custody, and/or control, and (ii) Section 2(i), above, will survive."
(7) Added "For dynamically priced campaigns, we may adjust the location of, and price for, your ads in an effort to meet your target goals (e.g., CPC, CPA, or CPL)."
(8) Added "OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request. If you would like any of such changes reversed, please reply to such email within 14 days of the change(s), and we will make commercially reasonable efforts to reverse the change(s) you specifically identify. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made. It is your responsibility to monitor your account(s) and to ensure that your account settings are consistent with your business objectives."
(9) Added "Product Submit Program only: “Categories” and “Subcategories” mean the product categories you select and that we may map to your ads based on your ads themselves and/or the websites to which the ads link. We may re-categorize any incorrectly categorized ads (as determined by us) at any time."
(10) Removed "In addition to any applicable service fees, you will pay for all clicks on your ads, provided that we may bill you a minimum monthly charge of $200 per Program. Product Submit Program & Travel Submit Program only: Ads will be categorized into the appropriate category either by you or by us, provided that we reserve the right at any time to categorize or re-categorize any uncategorized or incorrectly categorized ads (as determined by us in our discretion)."
(11) Added "Travel Submit Program only: If you or the Feed Provider submit Information, ads, or any portion thereof that do not comply with our requirements (including a failure to update the applicable Information) or are otherwise unacceptable, we may continue to use existing ads and Information."

There were other changes, but these are the ones that caught my attention.

Note, not all of this is that shocking. We did cover about six-months ago one of these document changes. I wrote, Yahoo Can Legally Create or Change Your Search Ads & Bill You For It, yea - it is true.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

At Search Engine Watch Forums, Discovery has a gripe.

He has noticed that the top performing keywords on Yahoo Search Marketing are no longer top-performing. Yahoo is invalidating them and making them inactive due to minimum bid requirements. He wonders why Yahoo is wasting its time doing this at all:

Why let bids go inactive at all? What does it hurt to just let them hang around at the 16th position until the marketplace shifts back and puts them on the top 10 again?

Further, he wants to know how Yahoo is determining that minimum bid and finds that Yahoo may be falling further than it should be.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Do you have any insights for Discovery and other Yahoo Search Marketing Advertisers who are also affected? And does Yahoo have any comment?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

The Yahoo Search Marketing blog has announced that those utilizing the Sponsored Search account functionality can now block 500 domains instead of the standard 250.

While this is helpful--after all, the number of blocked domains has now doubled--there's a concern that Yahoo is still sending "garbage traffic" to YSM users (from Yahoo search partners). One mentions that 500 blocked domains is not nearly enough. One mentions that he wants to block all non Yahoo domains.

On the other hand, one forum member says that he hopes that Google sees this as a challenge and also ups the number of domains that can be blocked.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Search Engine Watch Forums

We have recently wrote about Yahoo Charging More & Giving Less. But it seems like a new wave of spikes in minimum bids have been surging through Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a few advertisers complaining that Yahoo has increased their minimum bids again. Some advertisers are so tired of the increases in costs that they are dropping all or half of their budgets with Yahoo and moving it elsewhere.

I also received notification that my bids were going up, but then I received an email that they went back down. I think this might have been a bug related to email, but again, I am not sure. Some advertisers seem to be upset and have not confirmed that their bids are any lower now, then from before the spike. Here is one advertiser's statement:

I am really sick of Yahoo's Search Marketing and i'm cutting my budget in half as of today. I have been spending more and more, and getting fewer and fewer conversions. The interface has always been slow but at least my patience paid off with good looking stats. I spent the same amount in October on Yahoo as I did with Adwords and literally made 10 times on Adwords what I made on Yahoo. I don't know much longer I need to hesitate before it slaps me in the face.

Do note, that often we see complaints from Google AdWords advertisers about the same thing, but it is so common with Google that we don't cover every story.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

YahooPete has written on three of his usual forums to let us know that Yahoo Search Marketing has come out with many desired features. They include:

* Country-level targeting
* City and zip-level targeting
* Targeting English-speaking US and Canada Internet users

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog goes into these changes in more detail.

As forum members are writing, these are changes that they really appreciate.

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

A couple days ago, Tamar reported that Yahoo Search Marketing raised the minimum credit card amount to $250 for the Yahoo Product Submit program. Yahoo then sent us a statement, calling this change "in line with the industry's competitive norm." Now, after being offline for two days, I come back to several threads complaining about Yahoo charging more but offering less services.

Besides for the spike in the minimum charges for Product Submit customers, their fees are going up as well. A WebmasterWorld thread and Search Engine Watch Forums thread has an email from Yahoo showing that Yahoo will spike up the cost per click (CPC) by 25% in all categories in the Product Submit category. Let me quote you the email:

From November 3, 2008, until December 31, 2008, Yahoo! will be making a seasonal rate adjustment by increasing the cost per click (CPC) by 25% in all categories. This means that during this period your actual billed CPC will be 25% higher. This adjustment reflects the increased consumer buying activity during the holiday shopping season, which is typified by increased leads, better conversion to sale, and increased revenue for our merchant partners. The 25% adjustment to your billed CPC will be reflected on your Click Report and in your invoice.

No wonder Yahoo increased the minimum credit card charges to $250, it will be required with a 25% CPC increase.

To make things worse, on the Yahoo Search Marketing side, I saw a WebmasterWorld thread reporting an email being sent to Yahoo advertisers. The email says that for some advertisers, telephone support will be discontinued and they will step up the email support. Here is part of that email:

We wanted to let you know of some important news regarding your servicing options:

* Phone service - Starting September 29th, telephone support will no longer be available for some of our advertisers.

* 24-hour email support - Because we know some questions require personal help, our Customer Solutions team is always accessible, now through extended hours. Use the following steps:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums and the second WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld member is a bit disappointed at an email he received from Yahoo which says that Yahoo will be raising the price of the minimum credit card amount to $250, up 10x from the previous amount of $25. Here's a snippet:

Effective October 15, 2008, the minimum account-renewal amount for all credit card-funded Product Submit accounts will increase from $25.00 to $250.00. This means that you must make a minimum payment of $250.00 each time you add funds to your Product Submit account. The increased account minimum will allow you to continue to participate in the new bidded marketplace, while reducing the risk of frequently having your products taken offline because of a $0.00 account balance.

Why did Yahoo do this? One thought is that Yahoo may have had to pay the transactional fee and didn't want to. It's also thought that Yahoo is about to lose a good number of small business subscribers who are not willing to pay $250, so Yahoo's savings may also be its loss.

A number of people are looking to leave Yahoo due to this price increase. I can't say I blame them.

Forum discussion continues at WebamsterWorld.

Update: Yahoo has sent us a statement on this news:

Last week, we did announce that beginning on October 15, Yahoo! Product Submit merchants will be asked to renew their account balances in a minimum amount of $250. After careful consideration, we found that the current minimum of $25 ran out quickly, forcing the merchant to increase their account balance again, or risk having their products taken offline due to a zero balance status. With this change, we hope to reduce the number of times merchants need to replenish their Product Submit accounts and ensure longer periods of product uptime on Yahoo! Shopping. I think you'll also find that this new minimum amount is in line with the industry's competitive norm.

The Yodel Anecdotal Blog talks about the launch of APT from Yahoo, a new digital advertising platform that advertises "quality inventory" and "drive[n] results."

Here are some features of APT for Yahoo, according to YahooPete:

• For publishers, this platform is designed to open up access to large demand and help improve yield from all inventory, while simplifying ad management. It is also designed to help publishers create new revenue opportunities by cross-selling with other sellers to increase supply.
• Advertisers and agencies will be able reach a large scale of quality audiences across multiple properties on a single platform, and harness insights on those users, helping to drive better performance as they simplify media buying. It will also broaden the offerings that agencies can offer to their clients.
• Ad networks will gain access to more audiences and demand--including Yahoo! and the largest ad exchange--in one place, simplify the process of doing business with all of these partners, and expand revenue opportunities.
• Partners and developers will be able to easily bring their technologies, solutions and innovations to a vast marketplace, and help all buyers and sellers do business more effectively.
• Users will benefit as well, with a more relevant online experience. They'll see better targeted and more engaging ads.

Will you get APT immediately? No -- it's currently being rolled out slowly to Yahoo users and this will probably continue though 2009.

Now guys, what exactly does APT stand for?

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

To continue our coverage of Google ads on Yahoo Search, where advertisers are both happy and sad about this deal...

The SEC has been sitting on reviewing the deal and requested more time. Google CEO said that with or without SEC's review, they will be launching the deal on October 11th.

"While we have been talking to regulators, we don't know what their position is," Schmidt said. "We don't know if they think it's a good deal or poor deal."

There is some leeway on that date, but not much, said Schmidt.

This is very important for search marketers.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Google has an AdWords Editor, Microsoft is testing adCenter Editor (beta), but there is no word from Yahoo on a desktop editor for their Search Marketing platform.

An old WebmasterWorld thread was recently refreshed with the question, when is it coming?

One member recently received a survey from Yahoo's Lori Love Vice President of Customer Solutions. The survey mentioned the editor, but had no hint as to when of if it will ever come. One advertiser was told by his platinum specialist that Yahoo advertisers may see something in the first quarter of 2009. He did add that the editor will be lacking many features that you currently find in AdWords Editor.

Yahoo has been under a lot of stress recently, primarily over their search ads division. I wonder if the editor is a priority right now for them.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Reuters has reported that Google and Yahoo have disclosed parts of their ad pact. The details, which were filed with SEC, "take the unusual step of disclosing the contract governing the partnership, but leave out any financial terms, such as the revenue split on their deal."

The article states that a number of people are upset by the possible partnership, especially since this will give the Google empire control of 90% of the search market. However, the article later states that Google and Yahoo wants to emphasize that this is a non-exclusive agreement "in which Yahoo is effectively contracting with Google to sell ads alongside a portion of its search results." This positions Yahoo to focus on its stronger suits.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

YahooPete has visited the forums lately to announce a number of new features within Yahoo Search Marketing for the month of July.

Now, there are ad performance report enhancements which contain three new columns: your ad ID, a visual representation of your ad, and the destination URL.

Additionally, status changes have been implemented. Some example statuses include "bid too low," "inactive," "min bid: $0.40," etc.

Great news for those on the advertisers side of the Yahoo Search Marketing team -- Pete and his crew keep us abreast of the latest. Now they just need an offline editor like AdWords Editor, which seems to be important to many advertisers.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

In May, we reported that Yahoo stopped enabling signs ups and enrollments for the Yahoo Ambassador Program. The Ambassador program is basically a higher level of support for the Yahoo Search Marketing product and service.

Today, I noticed a WebmasterWorld thread that reports Yahoo is fully dropping the Ambassador program, even for those already enrolled. The program is reportedly closing down on September 30th.

WebmasterWorld senior member, Philosopher received the email notification from Yahoo. He said,:

I just received an email stating that the entire Ambassador program will be terminated as of September 30th.

I wonder what the bigger meaning of this is.

Current Ambassadors will be able to continue displaying the Ambassador logo, but that's pretty much it.

So why can Ambassadors continue to display their Ambassador logo if there is no such program anymore? Now that I don't understand. In fact, you can still see some ambassador confirmation pages working, I guess this means they will continue to work after September 30th. The Ambassador FAQs are still live, but the main page is redirects elsewhere.

In any event, we all know Yahoo is struggling to compete with AdWords. Maybe this is just another step in the direction of outsourcing paid search to Google?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: PPC Hero has text of the email available:

The Yahoo! Ambassador program was specifically developed to help marketers drive sales leads to their clients. For the last four years, Yahoo! has made an effort to enhance the program to provide the greatest added value to our users. After a thorough evaluation of the program, we have decided to discontinue the program. The Ambassador Program, except for the limited use of the Ambassador Logo as noted below, shall be terminated as of September 30, 2008.

CNet reports that the search advertising agreement between Google and Yahoo can seriously impact advertisers -- in a bad way. CNet's report states that "A Yahoo-Google deal could drive up Yahoo keyword prices by an average of 22 percent." The end result: Google and Yahoo win, but the smaller people (read: the advertisers) may not necessarily fare well.

Advertisers are starting to feel the heat of the potential "monopoly" as one forum member puts it. One forum member on WebmasterWorld wonders who will be paying the 22%. I'm going to assume it's coming from the advertisers.

Maybe this is a partnership that people should hope doesn't go through!

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

First there was Goto.com (aka Overture.com) as the leader in PPC by advertiser spend. Then Google outpaced Overture. Overture was bought by Yahoo and Yahoo's Overture (now Panama) secured the second place in advertiser spend. Well, now, it seems like a couple advertisers are beginning to report a major milestone for Microsoft adCenter. Two very well respected and seasoned PPC specialists have announced that Microsoft adCenter has accounted for more spend then Yahoo.

Is this the beginning of Yahoo falling behind Microsoft in search ads? Google still secures a strong lead in the area, but Yahoo has been experiencing a slow death.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a post from a senior member, Beren, who has been at WebmasterWorld since 2003. Beren explained why Microsoft is beating Yahoo:

June 2008 was the first month when our MSN AdCenter spending exceeded our YSM spending. A milestone has been passed as YSM becomes our number 3. And it wasn't because MSN spending rose; it was because YSM spending sank. I almost feel sorry for this company when I look at how they have fallen. (But I'm not really sorry because I don't like spending money and because they brought it on themselves.) A few years ago, our AdWords and YSM spending were about equal. In June AdWords spending was 35 times YSM spending. Our YSM spending went from six digits per month back in 2005 to four digits in June 2008.

Is the lower spending because we are getting fewer clicks, bidding on different keywords? No. It is almost all due to the collapse in price at YSM. The competitors in this industry realized the poor quality of traffic out of YSM and drove the bids down, down, down.

Yes, that is a true shame.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post from moderator Discovery, saying the same thing:

For the past 3 years or so Adcenter has provided a nice but small supplement to our daily conversion count. Decent conversion costs and good quality customers. The only issue we had was that the volume of traffic and conversions were low. No matter what we tried, traffic didn't budge and Adcenter sat as a distant 3rd to Google and Yahoo.

Last month we saw an uptick in traffic as well as conversions at Adcenter. This trend continued for the last two weeks of June. Our latest numbers show that Adcenter has outpaced Yahoo in both conversions and CPL over the last 30 days.

Wow, the tide is turning and it seems like Microsoft is well on their way to beating Yahoo at the search ad business. But is it because Microsoft is doing something right or because Yahoo is doing something wrong?

Forum discussion at and Search Engine Watch Forums.

It seems like the day has come, the day that Yahoo has killed the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool. Now, if you visit inventory.overture.com, you are redirected to http://sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing/. In fact, it is a permanent redirect, not just a temporary redirect, as you can see by using the URI Valet tool.

We knew this was coming, we have story after story reporting outages and downtime for this tool. Here is a run down of some of the stories we wrote covering the tool:

• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool Offline? on January 29, 2007
• Overture Keyword Selection Tool Back Online on February 2, 2007
• New Free Yahoo! Keyword Tool Coming; Overture Keyword Tool Suffering; & Other Tools on January 31, 2007
• Yahoo! Removes UK Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool on May 2, 2007
• Yahoo To Stop Updating Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool on May 8, 2007
• Is Yahoo Working on New Keyword Tool with Search Volume Data? on May 10, 2007
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool Seems Dead on September 17, 2007
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool has Returned on September 24, 2007
• More Server Problems With Overture's Keyword Tool on December 6, 2007

So does this end the saga with the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool or as it moved elsewhere?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A couple weeks ago we reported that more Google AdWords phishing email scams were being sent out. While those emails continue to be sent out, the same scam artists are sending out similar emails branded for Yahoo Search Marketing. Here is a picture of the email I personally received yesterday, that I know many others are also receiving:

Yes, it looks extremely similar to the AdWords phishing scams, in fact, it appears to be from the same scammer. The URL that the click here goes to is:

http://yms-source.com/yahoo.marketing.solutions/adui/loadSignin.htm

Yes, the same ysm-source.com domain. So be careful and don't ever reply to or take action on these types of emails.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last night at 6:30pm (EST), Yahoo announced a search ad deal with Google and discontinued talks with Microsoft. As you would imagine, this made major news - so read all the news stories, go to Techmeme, they organized most of the major stories for this announcement, as they always do.

The angle I am going to take with this article is to find out if this is good for you - the advertiser and the publisher. Let me explain that I listened to Jerry Yang and Susan Decker of Yahoo on the 6:30 conference call last night. In that call, I learned that Yahoo will pick and choose which keywords and industries queries they will show Google search ads over their own Yahoo search ads. They continue to call the Google ads, Google AdSense for Search - but in my mind, isn't Yahoo just a distribution partner of Google AdWords? Anyway, that is not as important - I assume they will show up in your AdWords reports as a normal syndication partner would.

Yahoo first announced that they would be testing Google ads back on April 10th. The day after, we saw first signs of Google ads on Yahoo Search results. The ads continued for well over a week, which was a surprise to many. Some advertisers loved having only to manage one campaign, a Google campaign, to also show their ads on Yahoo. But when I polled advertisers and publishers if they wanted to see Google power Yahoo ads in the future, advertisers will split down the middle.

The pie chart above and the detailed chart below are the results of our poll:

Of course, we only polled a limited set of users - mostly advertisers and/or publishers.

I would suggest, if you haven't yet, go answer the poll so I can get more responses and publish the results again.

Clearly, the deal would make it easier for advertisers in that they only have to manage one campaign. Of course, Yahoo said their ads will still be live - so it doesn't fully take the responsibility off the advertiser to manage their Yahoo campaigns. Most advertisers prefer the Google ad management interface over Yahoos'. But having one major player in the space is also scary to manage advertisers and publishers - yes competition is a good thing.

Note: I should have added that the Google ads won't be live on Yahoo for about 3.5 months, while Yahoo awaits approval from the Senate.

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

A forum member pointed us to a Yahoo ad Library which entitles you to an on-demand banner advertising solution. You can choose ad templates and customize them for your company and service and then choose a publisher you want to run with.

The cost of the service is $167/day ($5k/month), according to the FAQ, though one wonders if this is a program endorsed by Yahoo. It looks like a reseller (adready.com) and has Yahoo branding all over it, but I don't see any Yahoo official statements regarding the service. It'd be nice for some clarification regarding this service as it appears that the reseller is selling Yahoo display ads under the Yahoo brand.

Does anyone know about this service or do they have anything to add?

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

Yahoo, historically, has always been perceived as a company that took click fraud seriously. In fact, they launched the Traffic Quality Center in 2007 to make that statement. In addition, we have seen examples of Yahoo refunding money to advertisers time and time again, without the advertiser even requesting the refund. In the past, there were times where Yahoo wasn't all that good at admitting to click fraud, but they made up for it.

Now, we are receiving a report from an old time member at WebmasterWorld that Yahoo is getting very stingy on the click fraud refunds. This advertiser said that in the past month, Yahoo has rejected not one, but two click fraud requests. The advertiser details the issue, after explaining that Yahoo has always granted his click fraud requests in the past:

Much of these clicks reside from countries outside the areas for which I'm targeting. Receiving 500 clicks from Iran in a week (when I receive only 1000 from the United States) sends up flags. Especially considering I have blocked every continent except North America. A .info domain that was registered two weeks ago was somehow able to send more traffic to me than Yahoo.com has all month.

Now, I do not know the details of his click fraud reports. I am sure Yahoo has their side. So I guess, if I hear any updates on this thread, I will let you know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports a change to the Yahoo Search Marketing terms of service. The change basically says that Yahoo can add or edit your ads and you must pay for the clicks on those ads. Here it the legalize:

OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request. If you would like any of such changes reversed, please reply to such email within 14 days of the change(s), and we will make commercially reasonable efforts to reverse the change(s) you specifically identify. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made. It is your responsibility to monitor your account(s) and to ensure that your account settings are consistent with your business objectives.

Read that carefully.

Yahoo "may help you optimize your account(s)." You "expressly agree that we [Yahoo] may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s)." Not only that, "you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made." Yes, you are responsible for the changes Yahoo makes.

Crazy stuff and the forums are buzzing about it right now.

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

Yahoo made small, but significant changes, to the layout of the top search ads. It seems like Yahoo is now showing a maximum of three ads at the top of the page, when they use to show four ads. Plus, they have moved the display URL under the ad description.

Here is a sample of the old layout:

Notice the display URL is on the same line as the description. Plus, there are four ads for this particular search result. This picture was taken from James Omdahl and seems to be as recent as January 2008.

The new/current layout:

Notice, the display URL is now under the ad description and there are only three ads.

Spratjac, notified us of this change in Search Engine Roundtable Forums just a couple hours ago. He said, "On some of the keywords that I follow that normally show 4 ads above the organic results, it's now only three - very consistently." "Also, the ads look simultaneously more compact (closer together), and yet bigger (the URLs are now on a line by themselves)," he added.

Is Yahoo taking the Google route of reducing the number of ads to improve search quality and click-through rate?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

An interesting phenomenon is occurring within Yahoo Search Marketing that has been expressed pretty intensely by affected advertisers at WebmasterWorld. According to the impacted advertisers, the quality of their campaigns have gone down because of false impressions that have been generated for long tail keywords that were often never searched upon. In the case of one advertiser, his ad campaign served nearly 120,000 new impressions (triple what it was before) because of these obscure keywords in the campaign. After digging into his statistics, he disabled these low-performing keywords, but the damage had already been done, and the overall campaign effectiveness was reduced.

In other words, "a competitor found a low traffic keyword that [was being] advertise[d] on and searched tens of thousands of times to skew your CTR, thus lowering the quality of [the] entire campaign."

Only two Yahoo PPC users have been impacted by this shift thus far. According to one Yahoo rep, it is probably due to "market fluctuations," but typically, those who run the campaigns themselves would be most abreast of any market fluctuations (am I right?) It seems, to both affected individuals that there may be something else going on here, perhaps in the sense of fraud.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Try it, a search on bowling or lawyers and so on all may return a fourth line to the search ads at Yahoo Search. The fourth line might show a geo-location. Here are some pictures:

If the advertiser is geo-targeting the location of where you are searching for, then the fourth line may show the location. As I explained at BrandVerity Blog on this. This seems to be a new behavior from Yahoo, but yes, Google has been doing this for a while.

Google has been doing this at least since July 2004 and has even tried showing your exact address under the ad, on occassion - which is neat.

Here are Google ads for plumbers:

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Update: Yahoo has sent me a statement:

Yahoo! started labeling the location of ads last just week with the roll out of a new “geo labels” feature. The labeling is displayed primarily for localized queries, like restaurants, florists, mechanics, etc. and is based on the advertiser’s geo targeting preferences and the user’s location of interest.

A forum member pointed out that the Yahoo Ambassador Program signup page is no longer accepting new members. I'm not able to find any news on this story at press time, but I do have a screenshot of the page:

The question remains: is Yahoo dropping Search Marketing altogether? Forum members say they can still log in and see their reports, but that makes sense for the time being. Maybe, instead, they are dissolving the program and focusing more on Google ads. One doesn't know until someone at Yahoo tells us what's going on.

With that said, what's up, Yahoo? :)

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a copy of an email a Yahoo Product Submit advertiser received. The email basically says that Yahoo will be switching from a flat category price structure to a bidding marketplace type of structure, like we have at Yahoo Search Marketing or Google AdWords.

Why would Yahoo be switching the Product Submit pricing structure from a flat tier structure to a bidding structure? Possibly to earn more money? Possibly to consolidate the search marketing systems into one pricing mechanism?

Here is a copy of the email as posted at WebmasterWorld:

Dear Product Submit advertiser,

We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a bidded marketplace. With this change, there will be modifications to your Master Terms & Conditions and Program Terms, which will be detailed in a future email notice that you'll receive in the next 30 days.

We expect the bidded marketplace to have an impact on your day-to-day business. Therefore, we advise you and your team to begin planning for the transition to a bidded model.

As part of this launch, we are expanding the number of product categories and improving reporting within your Product Submit account.

These changes are designed to help you to:
- Better influence the level of traffic you receive from Yahoo! Shopping
- Gain more control over optimizing your product listings
- Gain better visibility into your category performance
Stay tuned!

The Yahoo Product Submit team

If you visit the Product Submit pricing page, you will notice that there have been no changes to the current pricing structure. At least not yet.

This is a major change for those who use Yahoo Product Submit and will require a higher level of daily management, something that many advertisers most likely won't like to spend their time on. I guess this is good news for search marketers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night, the big news was again Microsoft/Yahoo/Google business dealings. You can see all the headlines at Techmeme, including (1) Microsoft might start the hostile takeover today (tomorrow) and (2) Yahoo might announce they will continue to carry Google ads on the Yahoo search network. Greg Sterling has a post on that news at Search Engine Land.

I know that many advertisers would be delighted if Yahoo used Google's AdWords network as their ad base. We have positive feedback from when Google powered Yahoo's ads just a couple weeks ago. So, if Yahoo continued this test and made it a full deal, I know many advertisers who would be delighted.

I am sure there would be many who would be upset, but I think more would be happy. Out of curiosity, let's poll our readers on this. Would you be happy if Google powered Yahoo's search ads in the future?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Want to see invalid clicks on your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign? The YSM team has launched a new feature called the Click Filter Report. This report shows you data on clicks that Yahoo has deemed invalid, and can be customized with a variety of data points, including impressions, clicks, invalid clicks, invalid click rate, CTR, cost, and average CPC.

This new feature is accessible under the "Reports" tab in YSM accounts.

Here's a screenshot:

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

Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, abbottsys, posted detailed feedback on Google Ads Being on Yahoo Search. The Search Engine Watch Forums thread has only one post but deserves a lot more participation, in my opinion.

Normally, I would summarize, but I am not feeling so well and abbottsys does a great job, so let me quote him:

1) My ad was subscribed to Google Search and the Google Search Partner Network, but it was not subscribed to the Content Network

2) I bid high so I could be sure of seeing the ad. I also shut down all my native Yahoo campaigns. As soon as I shut them down my adwords ad took over on Yahoo.

3) My ad appeared at the top of Google and Yahoo. My ad ranking on Yahoo was slightly better than on Google.

4) Changes to the ad were reflected with equal speed on both Google and Yahoo.

5) I found it *very* convenient that I could manage my Yahoo campaigns from AdWords. I've always been a big fan of the AdWords management interface, which I feel is *far* superior to Panama, AdCenter, or any others out there. In fact, I was surprised how refeshing it was not having to mess with multiple ad management platforms.

6) As regards ad performance (CTR, conversions) I was very happy. Of course, since this was a Yahoo test I have no idea if these clicks were charged or even reported in my AdWords account. But the ad did perform well.

7) I've been doing this PPC stuff since 1998. My overall comment on this particular experience is that it was great. I really liked it from all aspects.

8) If this test leads to a full ad distribution agreement between Yahoo and Google my only additional request would be that my AdWords ads show up on the Yahoo Content Network. Currently ad distribution on this network is a mess, and needs to be upgraded. Yahoo clearly has infrastructure problems with ad delivery on their Content Network. Letting AdWords handle this would be a much needed upgrade!!!!

9) Bottom line. As an advertiser I simply loved this! Two thumbs up!!!!!!!!

In the meantime, the DOJ is investigating the Google/Yahoo ad test. So even though some advertisers might love to see Google provide the search ads for Yahoo, the DOJ might prevent that from happening.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yahoo's new minimum bids are now official live, and several advertisers have posted their new minimum bid increases at both WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Each advertiser who noticed a change in their minimum bid said they noticed an increase by two to four times of their original minimum bid price. Here is a quote from the thread:

yahoo just raised my minimum bids by 3 -4 times on many keywords.. they must be out of their minds..

Some advertisers feel stranded, having to now deal with Google Slaps and now the Yahoo Slap.

Google was impossible. And now Yahoo. Where to go?

But this is the reality of the game now. If your quality does not meet the definition of quality at Yahoo or Google, you will pay for it.

Let's poll our audience... Did your minimum bid increase in Yahoo?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday I reported that Google stopped running the Yahoo ads test that they started a week earlier and then asked why. I asked why would they stop the test early?

Well, the answer is that they did not. The individual we are tracking to see if the Google ads are live or not on Yahoo, saw that they went down. But now he is reported at Search Engine Watch Forums that the ads are currently showing again.

So I was premature in reporting that Google stopped testing the ads. They have continued the test and outlooks are continuing to look positive for advertisers and Yahoo, with this test.

Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Bigreds, an internet retailer has decided to sue Yahoo for $1 million over click fraud starting back in 2002. Yahoo offered Bigreds $17,000 back, but Bigreds wants more and they are suing for over $1 million in damages and penalties.

I wanted to pull out some of the best comments on this lawsuit, which you can read more about at InformationWeek, from a WebmasterWorld thread:

Look if you are going to build your billion dollar business around PAYPERCLICK then you should probably have systems, people, backups for the most obvious exploit.

It's the modern day equivalent of a bank without a safe.

Um, i'm looking at this site, and I really don't see how any traffic would convert, regardless of whether it's fradulent or not. Sorry Red, but I'm thinking that maybe the lawyers are the only ones that are going to come out ahead here.

I don't really see the problem with advertisers bringing suits against garbitrage because the advertiser foots the bill for the middle man market they create.

Decide for yourself...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo told us they were Search Engine Watch Forums by abbottsys states that his Google ads are now no longer showing up in the Yahoo Search ad slots. He also helped us break the news on when Yahoo started showing Google ads back on April 11th. But, as of April 16th, the Google ads no longer show on Yahoo.

That test was only one week. Did the test go really bad quickly? Was Yahoo not happy with the Google ads? Was Google not happy with Yahoo? Or is it simply that they both have enough data to make a decision going forward?

Maybe Yahoo decided to pull the Google ads in anticipation of earning more money through their new minimum bid prices that are suppose to go into effect any time now?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: There is related news at the WSJ on this:

Yahoo Inc. moved closer to outsourcing its search advertising to Google Inc. after an initial test of the system yielded what the two firms deemed positive results, people familiar with the matter said. — A partnership could give Yahoo some needed leverage …

Something is up, for sure. More coverage can be found at Techmeme.

Update: Yahoo Ad Test on Google Continues...

Yesterday I inaccurately reported that Yahoo's new minimum bid prices were live. That was wrong. What is live is the new user interface that shows one's minimum bid. In fact, I showed a screen shot of the location of where Yahoo will show you your new minimum bid:

But, an official Yahoo representative, YahooPete, came to WebmasterWorld to notify us that only the user interface has changes and the new prices have not yet gone live. That honestly surprises me, because I was told the new prices were coming early this week and being Thursday, we are not late this week.

In any event, YahooPete clarified saying:

Since we're close to launching minimum bid changes, some advertisers may notice user interface changes. We expect the actual bid changes to go live soon.

I will keep watching the space and let you know as soon as I see an update.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo told us to prepare for a minimum bid change, where now quality and value will impact an advertisers minimum bid for a keyword buy.

Those minimum bids have now gone into affect, according to a WebmasterWorld thread. We knew it was coming this week, but we didn't know exactly when it would hit advertisers.

First reports suggest it happened sometime before midnight last night (EST). The first post was at 11:13pm (EST), and the next report was about thirty-minutes after midnight.

So far there has not been an out cry of advertisers being hit with minimum bids of $10, like with Google. I will keep an eye out for you and report back if things change.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Correction: Yahoo's Minimum Bid Interface Live, Not The New Pricing, see this new post for more details. Sorry about the confusion, we will keep watching and keep you up to date.

Yesterday I reported that one of the many Yahoo announcements were that Yahoo was going to test running Google ads on Yahoo Search USA.

According to a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, the Google ads are now live on Yahoo. Note, if you don't want your Google ads to show on Yahoo, you need to opt your ads out on showing on third party search providers. In any event, some advertisers are noticing that their Google ads are showing up in Yahoo sponsored results.

As expected, the ads don't appear as AdSense ads - they simply look like Yahoo ads. SEW moderator explains, "Yahoo seems to be configured as a Google Search Partner, not as an AdSense publisher." In addition, he adds, "Initially (i.e. earlier today) I was only seeing my ad a small percent of the time (i.e. Yahoo was only including it on a fraction of the SRPs for a given search), but now I'm seeing my ad 100% of the time." But the ad is only showing when he stopped showing his native Yahoo ad, i.e. the Google ad won't show for him until he tells Yahoo to stop showing his Yahoo ad.

His conclusion so far?

The net effect is like a pooled ad resource, where Google and Yahoo have pooled ads to run on Yahoo (and maybe soon on both engines?)

Note, this is supposedly only suppose to impact 3% of Yahoo's search ads in the US. It is also suppose to run only for about two weeks.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

YahooPete has visited the forums over the weekend and has announced that Yahoo! Search Marketing's customer support hours have changed. The new hours are:

Monday – Friday: 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time

Saturday: 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time

Sunday: Closed

The number for the support team is (866) 924-6676.

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

A WebmasterWorld member asks about the frequency of Quality Index updates on Yahoo Search Marketing.

The answer is that the Quality Index updates daily provided that your ad has served impressions the day before.

How can you maximize your Quality Index? The Yahoo Search Marketing blog gives some insight into this value. Some tips include using relevant keywords, applying the keyword to your creative, taking advantage of excluded keywords, using A/B testing, gathering intelligence, and offering specials.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a horror story about how difficult it seems to take PPC data out of Yahoo! Search Marketing and port it to another account. In this particular case, the person is trying to detach from a search agency and migrate the information elsewhere. Is it possible?

It seems that the answer to that is no.

Werty speaks about his own experience with his switch over to Panama. According to him, when that happened, one of his clients had master account privileges to all his other confidential accounts of his clients and in the end, there was a huge issue with trust. It doesn't seem like the issue was resolved to his satisfaction.

In the end, then, it seems that YSM still needs to iron out a few kinks: one, in security, and two, in portability, in order to win over and maintain more potential advertisers.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Last week, at Search Engine Land, I wrote Yahoo Graphical/Video Search Ads Named Partner Results, and then Greg Sterling did a nice follow up with his Branding Coming To Search In A Big Way. The point is that video in search ads are coming and looks like they might be here to stay.

We saw this with Google in February with the Jason Bourne example and now we are seeing it with Yahoo's shop honda "partner results" search ad. Let's take a look:

Here is the ad for shop honda:

When you click on the icon or play video, it blacks out the search results and overlays this video ad:

What I find interesting is that clicking on the ad doesn't take you to Honda. There is no "on click" event for the actual video. Your only recourse is to close out the video and then click on the links from the non-video ad.

In any event, we know video ads are coming to search. The major question is, what form will they ultimately take in the next year or so?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Over at WebmasterWorld, moderator werty asks about the quality of YSM traffic. Has it changed, improved, or worsened?

Within the past few months, people have been seeing an increase of quality with Yahoo! Search Marketing. You can now exclude partners who send low-quality traffic as per our update in January. The low quality domains need to be entered by hand and there is a 250-domain limit at this time.

UK members aren't seeing any changes, though, especially because domain blocking is not yet available.

What are your opinions of the state of Yahoo Search Marketing? Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

I broke the news last night with my Search Engine Land post named Minimum Bids In Yahoo About To Change. In short, the Yahoo Search Marketing search network will no longer have a fixed minimum bid of $0.10.

It now has a quality metric:

(1) Value - the number of bidders and their bid amounts in a particular keyword market
(2) Quality - the relevance of keywords, or how frequently users click on the ads associated with them relative to competing ads

What surprises me the most is some of the forum reaction towards this news. We have threads at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums and DigitalPoint Forums and all seem somewhat positive. Here is a quote:

Good News! Thank you for the update Pete.

But some are not 100% excited about this:

interesting which direction it will go. I bet for most keywords it will go up.

When Google launched this, most advertisers were very upset. In fact, many are still very upset. The attitude of advertisers here can make the biggest difference. Those advertisers that embrace the change and prepare for it will win big. Those that don't can see themselves spending a lot of money they don't need to.

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

On January 7th, we asked you to vote on the most improved PPC program of 2007. Your votes are now all in and I wanted to share the 76 responses.

Overall, most of you felt Yahoo Search Marketing was the most improved PPC program of 2007. Yahoo launched Panama, the code name of their new PPC program, in October 2006 but really didn't start having Overture account (the old PPC system) migrated for a few months after that. Yahoo, in 2007, began also migrating the new system worldwide. Yahoo's new PPC system is a total overhaul of the old Overture system, and that is why most feel it is the most improved.

Here are the raw results:

As you can see, Google came in a fairly close second. Google has made several significant upgrades to their AdWords system, including dozens of quality score updates, smart pricing, demographic bidding and much much more.

Thank you for taking the poll.

Continued forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Reports are coming from DigitalPoint Forums that the reporting tools at Yahoo Search Marketing is a bit lagged.

It appears that although the reports are typically updated with recent data every 15 minutes or so, that recently the reports are taking much longer to update with new data. This makes it hard for advertisers to make quick changes to their pay per click campaigns within the Yahoo Search Marketing console.

One advertiser said:

Stats stopped updating at 2:15 am yesterday and they're still slowly catching up, only the click amounts are way too high, seems like something got really screwed up at yahoo yesterday, anyone else notice this?

Another said:

My stats usually update every 15 minutes. It's still stalled at 5:15AM. No one else is experiencing this?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There has been more and more reports of advertisers getting their AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing accounts hijacked. One way of this happening is by submitting your username and password on a site that looks like it is run by Yahoo or Google but in reality, is not run by Google or Yahoo. In order to help prevent these phishing attempts from fooling you, Yahoo has decided to implement the option of using a "Sign in Seal" feature on their YSM portal login.

Here is a screen capture of what it looks like to set up such a seal:

Now, all this really does it place a cookie on your computer. When Yahoo sees that you are asking the login page, Yahoo will display your custom sign in seal. How? Well, they look to make sure the cookie is on your computer and if it is and if you are on a Yahoo site, it will show the seal that you picked. If you delete your cookie or access the Yahoo login page from a different computer, you won't see the sign-in seal.

The feedback on this Yahoo announcement is mixed.

We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch. Frank Watson says since Yahoo is adding a cookie, "then you have a cookie that will track all activity of that computer if you wanted." But Yahoo already places tons of cookies on your browser that tracks you anyway ;-). Mel complained that it didn't work right for him:

Also, after setting up my sign-in seal on YSM yesterday, I had to reset my password FOUR TIMES before I could log in to my account. What a waste of time. Might have been a fluke, but I couldn't help but figure it was related to the sign-in seal.

Many advertisers are upset that this feature is only available in the US market. But others are pleased that Yahoo has added this new optional security feature.

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

YahooPete has informed us all that there are new features in Yahoo Search Marketing. He lists them as follows:

• Keyword Generator that allows you to add keywords to existing ad groups
• Campaign Tune-Up Alerts (only available in the US at the moment)
• Conversion Based Ad-Optimization
• You can now exclude up to 250 keywords.

Additional information can be found on the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog.

Good stuff. Things are getting better, though there's a bit of concern that the negative keyword amount should be unlimited and that "shady" search partners should be excluded completely.

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

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks what is the keyword limit per campaign within the Yahoo Search Marketing ad marketplace?

Based on the YSM help section, you can have up to 1,000 keywords per ad group and up to 20 ads. But we learn an additional item from the thread. It appears that when you initially add the ad group, you can only add 500 keywords at that time. Then after you save your ad group, you can add an additional 500 keywords to reach the 1,000 keyword limit.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread is discussing if some companies are taking vanity search ads too far. Typically, the vanity search ads companies should own are for their own name and domain name. But some are going further. Some want to own it all and become synonymous with the product line they are selling. At what point is it too much?

For example, a search on computers returns ads from Microsoft, HP, Dell, Gateway, BestBuy, Circuit City, etc. BestBuy, Circuit City and their kind are buying the ads to sell. Microsoft, HP, Dell and Gateway might be trying to sell - but they might also be buying it for branding and vanity reasons. I don't see an Apple ad there.

How about the ultimate vanity ad for a search on god:

Nah, I made that up but something like that would be kind of crazy.

In any event, do you think some companies are taking it too far with vanity searches?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

We rarely talk about the Yahoo Directory these days, but Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal spotted Yahoo serving images near the sponsored listings within the Yahoo Directory.

For example, the NY Internet Consulting directory has tons of ads, most with images near them. Here is a screen capture.

Notice the top ad has a smaller image, and the ads on the right have slightly larger images. I have never seen Yahoo place images near sponsored ads. In fact, Yahoo specifically warned publishers to not put images near their contextual ads.

This is not the first time Yahoo placed images near their ads. They did display images near premium contextual ads in the past. But never in a search results setting, which includes directory listings.

Loren Baker explains that these images are not clickable and are hosted by worthathousandwords.com, aka. ImageAdvantage.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

A member posted a thread at WebmasterWorld in the Microsoft adCenter forum asking how he can advertise in the German market with adCenter. Guess what? You can't, not just yet.

However, adCenterEU, the official Microsoft representative in the European market, told this member to advertiser with Yahoo Search Marketing. He said:

It's true that adCenter is not available in Germany as yet, so i suggest you go through our paid search partner Yahoo! Search Marketing.

From the UK just sign up here:

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/en_GB/

Pretty cool! Well, I assume as soon as Microsoft expands into Germany, those recommendations will halt.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld member noticed a strange Yahoo address in his logs and was wondering if anyone had ever noticed it:

alchemy.corp.sp1.yahoo.com

According to Yahoo, this is a URL that they use to test the relevance of landing pages. There are no charges for this activity.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo has begun shipping out their Christmas gifts. One Yahoo Search Marketing advertiser received his gift. CPA Affiliates posted a picture of the gift he received, a nice looking laptop case.

You can see a picture of the inside at CPA Affiliates.

Google gave out 2GB Memory Cards and some advertisers also got a $100 DonorsChoose card to give to their favorite school. But some special advertisers received a Flip Ultra Video Camera.

Love schwag, so does Tamar, she devoted a blog just to schwag at SchwagAddict.com.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

According to Jeremy Schoemaker's blog, he has recently been terminated from the Yahoo Search Marketing program because 65% of his referrals to the YSM program are signing up with fraudulent credit cards. According to the lengthy email discourse, Yahoo has no way of tracking where these signups are occurring and naturally he's a bit upset.

How can this problem be fixed? As many forum members say, it is really not Jeremy's responsibility. It's Yahoo's.

I think the main point is YSM's lack of reliable tracking and fraud detection.

And if that's not possible, then Commission Junction should be able to verify this.

My thought (and the perception of many others) is that Yahoo should have assigned Jeremy a different ID so that he could change it on his website to confirm that the 65% number is being accurately reported from his website and from nowhere else.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.

There is a tip full Search Engine Watch Forums thread with things you can do to fine tune and optimize your new Yahoo Search Marketing campaign, after you preform the migration to Panama from a legacy Yahoo Overture account or a Google AdWords account.

Here is a summary of those tips:

• Ensure the migration tool actually worked right, you will often find things that don't match up and can hurt your campaign's performance
• Take advantage of Yahoo's improved geotargeting features, they work well now
• Utilize Yahoo's analytics tags to the fullest
• Yahoo has a domain blocking feature, make sure to use it when applicable

Mona Elesseily wrote the book on Yahoo Search Marketing named Mastering Panama, so if you prefer books, I know she did a ton of research and exploration before publishing this book.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

I have been spotting threads over the course of the week that Yahoo's Overture Keyword Selection Tool is not loading for people. I tested it myself, and yes, it is not loading for me either.

This is nothing new with the tool. Yahoo has not been eager to support this tool since they have other tools in place within their Yahoo Search Marketing console that does similar tasks. In addition, the tool is a huge scraper graveyard, which requires huge server resources - something Yahoo probably doesn't want to invest in with this tool.

Here is a historical look at some of the problems we covered with this tool over the past year:

• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool Offline? on January 29, 2007
• Overture Keyword Selection Tool Back Online on February 2, 2007
• New Free Yahoo! Keyword Tool Coming; Overture Keyword Tool Suffering; & Other Tools on January 31, 2007
• Yahoo! Removes UK Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool on May 2, 2007
• Yahoo To Stop Updating Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool on May 8, 2007
• Is Yahoo Working on New Keyword Tool with Search Volume Data? on May 10, 2007
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool Seems Dead on September 17, 2007
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool has Returned on September 24, 2007

So now it is back offline, for the time being. Do we have alternatives? Of course!

A Cre8asite Forums thread lists a bunch of alternative solutions, including:

• http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
• http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
• https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox
• http://adlab.msn.com/ForecastV2
• http://adlab.msn.com/contextSim/Default.aspx
• http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
• http://www.seosleuth.com/site/www.seochat.com
• http://www.seodigger.com
• http://www.spyfu.com/
• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Yahoo Search Marketing has released a pretty cool feature that allows you to fine-tune your campaign and have greater control (and feedback) over your accounts. Additionally, you can now save your preferences so that when you log in, your previous view is restored.

Here's an example of the Campaign Tune-Up feature. As you notice, there's a new tab to allow you to tune your campaign.

Once Yahoo performs the tune-up, you can view your results.

Nifty.

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

Have you ever wanted to import a Google AdWords campaign to Yahoo Search Marketing but didn't know how? You do now, thanks to Discovery, who wrote an excellent guide on Search Engine Watch Forums.

On the Yahoo Search Marketing end, go to the Campaign Tab > Import > Import 3rd Party Campaigns.

Here are the necessary steps:

1. Download the third-party campaign to a file on the appropriate site.
2. Open the file on your computer. Make sure it's in CSV or ZIP format and adheres to the guidelines for YSM.
3. Convert your third party campaign file with an appropriate name that is easy to remember.
4. Download and review the converted campaign file by choosing the Download link.
5. Import the converted campaign file.

So far, one person has tried it and it worked well with the exception of one small issue: Yahoo sees some keywords as duplicates whereas other campaigns on other sites do not have these restrictions.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

When you look at the Internet, a lot of people either have concerns, want to get questions answered, but they never talk about when a company goes above and beyond. Perhaps that's because companies don't typically go the extra mile.

But in one case, Yahoo! did. And a forum member at DigitalPoint Forums wants everyone to know.

I do advertising (PPC) with both Google and Yahoo. the other day I got a call from a customer service agent at Yahoo making sure that everthing was running ok and that i was happy with the results.

He calls Yahoo's customer service simply "awesome." If only other companies would go out of their way to make sure the end user is happy. (Google, for example, does not.) :)

Yahoo has gone out of their way before. When we reported about the block domain feature just a few weeks ago, Yahoo ended up calling a concerned user and spoke to them for "about an hour."

Yahoo's extra attention to improving the user experience is only a good thing. Keep up the good work.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last week we reported on a thread that accused Yahoo Search Marketing's Block Domain Feature Encouraging Laziness at Yahoo. In short, Yahoo released the domain blocking feature to enable advertisers to block specific publishers from showing their ads. The allegations are that since Yahoo released this feature, they have been more lax about weeding out bad publishers, since the advertiser can do it themselves. Yea, you can never win.

In any event, YahooPete, an official Yahoo representative replied in the thread saying:

I want to let you know that Yahoo! is committed to delivering valuable traffic to our advertisers through our partner distribution network. In fact, in addition to the new Blocked Domains feature, advertisers can receive discounts on traffic from our partners’ domains, based on our assessment of the quality of that traffic.

Just a reminder for blocking domains and sub domains, entering example.com would block everything using the example.com domain. This means your ads would not appear on pages under such domains as example.com , www.example.com , www1.example.com , taxes.example.com , or www.example.com/news . You should use the format in this example (without "www." or any sub-domain) if you want to block the entire web site.

So if you do not block someone, Yahoo will give advertisers discounts on traffic from low quality publishers.

Advertisers are still not happy, they want to know how Yahoo will "address MSI's issue of low-quality sites using multiple TLDs, e.g. findogo.com, findogobr.com, findogoch.com, etc. How is Yahoo combating this?"

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yahoo launched domain blocking within Yahoo Search Marketing (their search ad solution) to help give advertisers control on which sites, domains and subdomains they do not want their ads to show up on.

So if you see your ad is displayed on site abc.com and abc.com is not converting for you, you can block it. Great, no? Well, according to a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, maybe not.

Many believe that this new feature is encouraging Yahoo to be lazy about who they accept as publishers and partners for displaying their ads. Let me explain. Yahoo has a contextual network called the Yahoo Publisher Network, which I write about over here. Those in the Yahoo Publisher Network have the potential to display your ad on their site and earn income for each and every click.

Now, if you block their site by domain, they can just create a brand new one and start all over again. Is Yahoo getting lazy when it comes to blocking these new or even old partners from creating low quality sites and displaying ads on them? Some think so. And as an FYI, the argument can also easily be made for Google's AdSense network.

Member MSI explains:

I agree I blocked one domain to start (findogo.com), now I get clicks from findogobr.com, findogo.net, findogocr.com, fondogoso.com etc.etc.etc. Didn't see these domains until I blocked findogo.com. So if I block 250 and gain at least four per blocked I will then have 1000 more bad partners to deal with....what a joke.

That's why I saw clicks go up and conversions go down when I had them blocking them through my rep months ago!!!!!!

Wake up Yahoo..you lost my last client in your engine this week all because of these type of issues.

Another advertiser said, "YSM is a disaster since they started domain blocking. While there used to be a good share of bad affiliates, now the rate of new bad affiliates is out of control. As fast as I can put them in the filter, new ones come up."

Can such a nice feature cause so many problems?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

As expected, Yahoo Search Marketing has launched their blocked domains feature. Advertisers can now block up to 250 sites from showing their ads on the content network.

The Yahoo Search Marketing help page has detailed instructions on how to block domains. In short, go to your accounts page under administration tab and click on the "Submit Domains".

Then you will see this page, which will allow you to block up to 250 domains, subdomains or pages.

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

A WebmasterWorld thread and DigitalPoint Forums thread is reporting that Yahoo Search Marketing is having some major reporting issues.

One advertiser noticed he has received 1,201,660 clicks, costing him $965,212.38!

Yea, almost $1 million for just over 1 million clicks.

What happened? It appears that Yahoo upgraded the reporting features amongst other things, which caused some advertiser's reports to show huge spikes in numbers.

I would not panic, it appears to be a reporting issue only and there are no confirmed reports of actual charges of $1 million being placed on any advertiser's credit card. In fact, one advertiser reported that Yahoo is already fixing the issue.

I emailed my Rep & he said they know about it & they are working on resolving it already. The UI was upgraded & there are quite a few bugs that were produced because of it. We can't log into some accounts from certain countries at all now.

Here is a screen capture of someone's account at DigitalPoint Forums:

Ouch!

There are also reports of issues logging in to advertiser accounts and more. I suspect these bugs will be resolved by the end of today.

Update from Tamar (October 10): YahooPete has updated the thread to inform advertisers that it was indeed a bug that has been fixed.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

WebmasterWorld members report that they are getting unqualified traffic from Yahoo! Search Marketing even with the content network turned off. Most of these clicks are coming from parked domains, according to advertisers.

According to Yahoo, this is expected, and soon, you'll be able to exclude domains with Yahoo's new tool.

This whole problem, however, doesn't sit well with advertisers. They fear that these are not quality sites despite a Yahoo representative's claim that these parked pages are "search partners." Overall, the advertisers feel very slighted.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

This post was composed on October 3rd and was scheduled for publication on October 5th.

Last night I reported at Search Engine Land that Yahoo announced the Yahoo SIte Blocking feature we had a scoop on last month is coming to advertisers by mid-October.

Yahoo Site Blocking will allow advertisers to define up to 250 sites or pages they want to not display their ads on. So if you do not want your ads to show up on the sites or pages of some Yahoo Publisher Network sites, you will have that granular control within a few weeks. Google also has this feature, by the way.

Most advertisers are excited for the launch of this feature, as portrayed by forum threads at Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. But some are skeptical it will work for their benefit, at least right off the bat.

I won't hold my breath that it will work. I tried the blocking they can do now and it had a negative affect on my client's account and Yahoo could not explain why. How can I block aprox 300 clicks per day with 3 conversions and have the account clicks RAISE by more than 300 and conversions were cut in half.I had them remove the blocking and the account showed improvement

I would suggest great CAUTION when first using this feature. They still haven't gotten some publishers to UN-MASK their traffic that STILL shows in teh Non-reffered category when it is truly REFERED traffic. How can blocking go into place if that has not been resolved?

I will try the blocking again, but I will do it ONE publisher at a time until I figure out which ones cause problems when they are blocked........

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

There is early discussion at a WebmasterWorld thread with some frustrated Yahoo advertisers. Their frustration mostly stems from some of their imports into Yahoo Search Marketing. They say, the import feature doesn't always work.

Here is how one advertiser described it:

To be honest, I gave up on the upload feature in Yahoo. It has always been buggy for me, regardless if I down load my campaign directly from YSM, make changes and try upload the same, edited file. And forget about trying to upload my AdWords campaign into YSM! :)

Now, let me take Yahoo's side on this. As some of you know, I run a Web development company named RustyBrick. Part of that is to build out methods for clients to easily import and export data from their back office applications. Just like you would with importing and exporting into Yahoo.

Now, when you have users import files, if the structure of the document is changes or if there are invalid characters in the export, an error will be presented to the user on import. These changes to structure and characters can occur for dozens of reasons, even without the user knowing. That is where the error checking comes in. If an error is found, it is best to represent the error to the user as clear as possible. But there can literally be hundreds of different types of errors and causes for why the error might occur. As you find those outliers, they are programmed in. In addition, file sizes can impact the import as well.

There are many reasons why an import might fail on one day and work the next.

Over time, these imports will become more streamlined. Just keep reporting the exact error, submit your files to Yahoo and be descriptive. It will not only help you out in the future, it will help out other advertisers as well.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo appears to be releasing a new search marketing feature that enables advertisers to block specific sites from displaying on both Sponsored Search and Content Match networks.

Discovery at the Search Engine Watch Forums thread writes that the "Site Blocking" feature should be available anything between now and the first quarter of next year.

Yahoo Site Blocking will enable you to prevent your ads from displaying on a specific domain or sub-section of domain at the account level. Yahoo will allow up to 250 blocked domains, while Google only allows 100.

You are able to configure blocking a entire domain, sub-domain and up to two directories.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Last moth, we reported that Yahoo! Search Marketing will be adding new features. Today, one of those features, payment by PayPal, is a reality. This feature was made live last week.

Now advertisers can pay via PayPal and publishers can get paid via PayPal. This all makes complete sense since Yahoo forged its partnership with eBay and Paypal. Expect things to get easier for the millions of users who have PayPal accounts.

For more information and forum discussion, see YahooPete's announcement at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, and WebmasterWorld .

YahooPete writes in on Search Engine Watch Forums, DigitalPoint Forums, and WebmasterWorld about new features that the YSM team has rolled out.

Enhancements to the process for creating an ad
Low quality index alert – Advertisers will be alerted if their quality index drops below a certain level.
Ad generator – Add titles and short sentences to the ad generator which will automatically combine various permutations of those titles and short sentences to form a set of candidate ads
Campaign optimization – Optimize your campaigns according to your specified goals

The biggest response is on DigitalPoint Forums, where forum members aren't happy that the minimum deposit is $30 (but they're happy that PayPal is now an accepted form of payment). And now impressions can be sorted by descending order.

I nearly had to replace my undershorts today when I hit sort by impressions, and it sorted in DESCENDING ORDER! Thank you! This has been something that annoyed me since the day I began using the most recent version.

The other observation is that the AJAX script is just a bit slow and members are requesting an offline editor.

I can see that YSM is making good advancements in the system efficiency department, but the ajax code in use seems incredibly slow, even on fast computers for the javascript end of things... any chance of an offline editor in the future?

I think that would be hot.

The YSM blog also has in-depth information about these enhancements.

Looking good, YSM team!

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

In November 2005, Yahoo lowered the minimum deposit from $30 to $5.

Early reports are coming from DigitalPoint Forums that Yahoo has now increased the $5 minimum from $5 to $35. Yes, flipping the minimum deposit back to that number pre-November 2005.

So I decided to give it a try and sign up for a new account and they are right. Here is a screen capture from the billing page on the sign up process:

You can see the minimum bid is now at $30.

Is this a bug? I took a look at the sponsored search page and it still says $5.

Each account requires a nonrefundable $5 initial deposit.

Maybe it is a bug because I didn't see an announcement on this.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has just announced the launch of a brand new tool, the Traffic Quality Center. The goal of the Traffic Quality Center is to combat click-fraud, learn about traffic quality, and access tips and information regarding search marketing and click-fraud detection.

YahooPete has gone around to Search Engine Watch Forums, DigitalPoint Forums, and WebmasterWorld to share the news.

While many users appreciate this system and welcomed the news, others at WebmasterWorld felt that Yahoo needs to play a more active role in addressing issues for search marketing.

I think the traffic quality center is a great resource that can help advertisers understand the quality of traffic. But while making sites touting how you are making the search marketplace better is one thing, actually enforcing those principles is another.

[snip]

And it's not just the types of traffic Yahoo! keeps blindly accepting, it's the fact that advertisers still don't have basic features to fight it. ... But I have to wonder, if Yahoo! is so determined to stop click fraud, why are they not policing their partners and giving their advertisers tools to fight it?

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

MSI in a Search Engine Watch Forums thread said that he was given a report named Subphrase Matching Account Detail (SAGE) by one of his new Yahoo Search Marketing representatives.

The report, to his surprise, contained "all the words (and more) that must have generated the assists." The report can only be run by an account rep at Yahoo over a "specific time period." It will contain every single "raw search term the account took impressions on."

MSI added:

Now this report tells you all the terms, how many impressions they took, and how many clicks they took, but no conversion info (which would identify the Assists). However it does contain enough info that you can make an intelligent decision about which keywords might be beneficial to bid on directly. I am currently testing a group of keywords I got off this report.

What is so great about this secretive report? MSI explains that this is the only report that gives you a clue about what keywords generated what "assists" in the Yahoo program. But ultimately, search marketers want a report that does tell them these details straight out.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Over a week ago Yahoo announced a search update, telling us to expect "fresh web data and crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the last few days."

New reports are coming from WebmasterWorld of more changes to the Yahoo Search index.

The ones chatting right now are not too thrilled with these changes.

Seeing some more changes that look really bad. A major step backwards.

I think (hope) that this newest change reverts back to the original update. What I am seeing today, I saw for a few hours last week.

Although the current update is not the greatest, it is much better than what I am seeing today. The top ten for some competetive terms are flooded with suspended free hosting accounts.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

On a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, AussieWebmaster asks if any advertisers have noticed an increase in impressions but a decrease in conversions. He believes that there is some "serious" expanded matching going on, especially as he found this tidbit at Yahoo's Search Marketing Help Section:

The Advanced match type displays your ads for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions and/or web content. If you use the Advanced match type, and to help maximize the relevancy of your listings to search users, make sure you take advantage of Excluded Words, which are words or phrases that prevent a listing from matching a search query.

It's possible, some say, but the other possibility is that the Yahoo! network has added new partners.

Mel66 believes the problem is a combination of the two:

I think you're both correct - Advanced Match is too expanded for my liking; and you definitely have to watch for low-quality partners coming in and out of the network. We had one pop up a few weeks ago that sent us hundreds of bad clicks in a few days. By the time I contacted Yahoo about them, they'd shut down their site.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Towards the end of May, Yahoo launched the new Panama Search Ad platform in the UK.

Yahoo recently introduced the new ad ranking model that takes into account quality. Gabs posted at his blog an email he received from Yahoo Europe:

Dear Advertiser,

We're excited to announce that the new ranking model is now live in our UK market. The new ranking model is designed to improve user results through higher quality search ads. When users engage with these higher quality search ads, advertisers will receive more interested, valuable potential customers, helping to drive better results for your business.

As we previously announced, both bid amount and ad quality now determine an ad’s rank in search results.

Yahoo launched the quality component in the US on February 5th. It seems like Yahoo gave less time for the UK advertisers to get accustomed to the new ad platform before switching over to the new ranking model. But then, the UK advertisers have been reading the feedback from the US advertisers, so maybe they need less time to transition.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums & Search Engine Watch Forums.

An updated Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports one respected user finding referrals from Yahoo Search in their new Google Placement Reports.

Placement reports, are new reports from Google, that show AdWords advertisers who opt in the content network, where there ads are being displayed.

SEW Forums moderator, Discovery, said, he spotted Yahoo within his placement reports:

Started getting this in my placement report this past week

search.yahoo.com/search...

Only 12 clicks this month at a mid level CPC... no conversions!

This begs the question, is Yahoo using Google AdSense to supplemental their inventory?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a member stating that although his site was banned from Yahoo! Search and was denied reinclusion into Yahoo's index, he was still able to guarantee inclusion through Yahoo's paid inclusion program.

Yahoo's paid inclusion is now named Search Submit and it is a program that allows you to send Yahoo your pages, and if approved, Yahoo will guarantee to crawl those pages often, plus give you the ability to send them more meta data.

The major issue with being accepted into paid inclusion but being denied to the normal Yahoo crawl is that they both should follow the same quality content guidelines. Yes, the paid inclusion program has a set of content guidelines. But whatever is displayed within the search results have to meet Yahoo's overall quality guidelines.

The member explained the process:

1. Banned by Yahoo!
2. Made some changes
3. Given the opportunity to participate in Paid Inclusion, which you have to be good enough for regular inclusion to participate in.
4. Attempted regular inclusion...we were told NO.
5. Looking at Paid Inclusion again because we can advertise in the organic rankings with this product.

About a few weeks later, Yahoo actually included them back into the search index for free. The member said:

We have been miraculously reincluded and we are performing very well in the organic listings without paid inclusion!

As many people know, there is a gray line as to what quality truly is. Even within organizations, one person at Yahoo can review a site and consider it "good enough" to be included, whereas someone else can say it "just doesn't meet the requirements." Is this a case of that?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks how can one who is based in the UK and has ads currently running in the UK with Yahoo Search Marketing also have ads for the US market?

Yahoo has set up their pay per click management system to require you to set up new accounts in each country region that you want to advertise in.

For example, if you are a USA based advertiser and want to advertise in the UK, you must set up a new account in the UK with the Yahoo division there.

Keep in mind, Yahoo does allow geo-targeting within the country you are in. So US advertisers can target New York users, if they wanted to. How?

To target prospective customers by state, province, or territory:
1. Click the Specific Regions button. The Target By dropdown list is displayed.
2. Select State/Province/Territory. The states, provinces, and territories within your market are listed below.
3. Select the regions to target.
- To target specific states, provinces or territories, click the checkboxes next to the regions.
- To target all states, provinces or territories, click the checkbox next to States/Provinces/Territories above the list.

To target prospective customers by city and surrounding area:
1. Click the Specific Regions button. The Target By dropdown list is displayed.
2. Select City and Surrounding Area. The search panel appears below.
3. Search for the cities and surrounding areas to target.
- To search for cities and surrounding areas within a state, province, or territory, click the State/Province/Territory button and select an area from the dropdown list.
- To search for cities and surrounding areas near a specific ZIP/Postal code, click the ZIP/Postal Code button, and then enter the ZIP/Postal code and the radius (in miles) around that ZIP/Postal code that you want to search.
4. Click the Search button. A list of cities and surrounding areas appears below.
5. Click the checkboxes that correspond to the cities and surrounding areas to target. The Map View tab displays the selected cities and surrounding areas. The Targeted Regions tab lists your selections.
6. To target additional cities and surrounding areas in another state or near a different ZIP/Postal code, run the search again.

More on geotargeting at Yahoo over here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The New York Times reports Yahoo is launching "SmartAds." SmartAds is a product that leverages behavioral targeting data with search data, to generate "custom advertisements on the fly."

How does it work?

For example, a person who had recently searched for information about blenders might see an ad from Target that gives the prices for the blenders that are on the shelves in the store closest to that person’s home.

The advertiser gives Yahoo their logos, tag lines and images. The store owner will provide details about what the store offers to Yahoo. Yahoo will then match the retailers products and image creatives with the Yahoo users’ demographics and actions across the web, to deliver a targeted and customized ad.

“We’re doing real-time creative assembly that leverages what we know about our audience,” Mr. Teresi said. “You can buy the entire Wall Street Journal site, and when a female shows up, we will create a different ad or when someone from New York shows up, another one.”

Behavioral targeting is nothing new. But making display ads work more like search ads, "applying personalization to display ads, so they work like search and listing ads," just shows that the search ad model works - and works well.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced new features they added to the Panama (Yahoo Search Marketing) advertisers console.

The largest feature is a method of moving or copying keywords from one ad group to another ad group.

On the Ad Group page under your Campaigns tab, you’ll now see “Move” and “Copy” buttons. As the names imply, these let you move your keywords from one ad group to another and copy them as appropriate. Note that you’re still limited to 100 keywords per ad group.

Select a keyword you want to move by clicking the check box next to it. The first time you hit the “Move” button you’ll get a pop up that shows some useful instructional text. You may opt not to view this in future. You’ll then be taken through an easy step-by-step process for moving your keyword.

Now new advertisers can use the keyword selection tool during the online enrollment process. In addition, they made the keyword section tool easier to use and more useful. Plus, Yahoo now helps you write your ads by giving you ad text ideas.

Those are the new features, the forums don't have much feedback on them, as of yet.

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

Last week, I wrote about how to see geotargeted Google ads from another location. The solution, for Google, is relatively simple: add location attributes and values to the Google ad preview page. However, this time, a DigitalPoint Forums member asks how you can see geotargeted Yahoo ads from another location.

The solution to this is tougher, since there is no Yahoo ad preview option. The only way I am aware of is to use a USA proxy server to view the ads. I'd love to hear it if other people have additional suggestions.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yahoo has now implemented that all search ads descriptions are 70 characters or less. We knew this was coming for some time now and now it is here.

Yahoo has their official word on their YSM blog.

YahooPete has posted the announcement in the various forums including Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A short WebmasterWorld thread has some good nuggets on the level of traffic you should expect from a normal Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign relative to a Google AdWords campaign.

WebmasterWorld member, WebFusion, posted his confusion over just under 3% of the traffic he gets from Google with his Yahoo paid campaign. He explained how he used the exact same campaign, keywords, ads, ad copy and so on that he is using at Google AdWords plus he is bidding more at Yahoo. The ads have the same position in the search results as well. But he only received 25 visits per day from Yahoo, but he received 750 a day from Google.

Both shorebreak and Skibum, a WebmasterWorld moderator (Elis), explain that what WebFusion is seeing, is not the norm. Typically, Yahoo should send you about 20 - 25% of the traffic Google is sending you. But this can vary widely by industry. Skibum explains;

2% is about what one would expect for Ask.com give or take a percent or two. MSN around 10% and like ShoreBreak said, around 20 - 25% for yahoo! but it can vary widely by industry.

I would love to see more feedback in that thread and if you noted what industry it was, that would be even better. I know that organically, Ask.com send me more traffic than Yahoo did this past month - and we are included in Yahoo! News.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

YahooPete, the official Yahoo! Search Marketing representative, has posted in the various forums a reminder that Yahoo! will be automatically shortening your descriptions to the 70-character limit on June 20th.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Yahoo! has already prevented new ads from having a description longer than 70 characters on May 16, 2007. Although, it seemed then that the descriptions should have been automatically shortened - but I guess Yahoo! gave us more time.

The difference looks something like this:

This does not impact many international advertisers who are not yet on the new advertising platform, aka Panama.

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

I had a chance this afternoon to speak to Yahoo! about my Concerns Over Yahoo!'s New Quality Based Pricing.

In short, I rationalized that since Yahoo! is using an advertisers (in aggregate form) conversion rate to decrease the price they pay per keyword. They can then logically use the same data to increase an advertisers bid.

I am glad to report that after speaking with Yahoo! about this, I am convinced whole-heartedly that Yahoo! would not go to this level. In fact, I could hear the distaste and disappointment in their voice over the possibility of even some advertisers thinking this.

Reggie Davis, Yahoo!'s vice president of marketplace quality, told me:

Yahoo! is dedicated to continually enhancing the quality of our marketplace so we can deliver better value to our customers. We've introduced quality-based pricing in an effort to provide our advertisers higher ROI from our sponsored search and contextual ad offerings and to encourage publishers to focus on the quality of their traffic if they want to take full advantage of our marketplace. This initiative is not about increasing the amount you pay for traffic from high-quality sites -- you will never pay more than your maximum bid amount. Our plan is to grow our ecosystem by delivering better value to advertisers, which we hope will encourage additional participation in our marketplace and in turn provide even more relevant results to our consumers – which, in the end, benefits both Yahoo! and its publishers.

Personally, I am happy with this response and I believe it sets a standard for Yahoo!'s bidding methodologies in the future.

Continued forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

The other night Yahoo! released a quality based bidding methodology to their ads. What that means, as I explained, is that Yahoo will give advertisers a discount on their bids based on several metrics, including how a publisher converts on the whole.

Converts? Yes, a conversion rate. Which means, Yahoo is tracking to see if a publisher's ad will ultimately lead to a conversion. Conversions include a goal (sales form completion, lead generation, etc.) or a sale on a site.

If a publisher produces lower conversions related to other publishers in a specific keyword marketplace, Yahoo will take notice. Then Yahoo will discount the bid price, and refund the advertiser money for those clicks. Many compare this to Google's smart pricing, but I have not seen Google come out and say they are using conversion metrics to determine a price of a click.

The discussion on how Yahoo is using a bit too much information to price ads has already begun at Search Engine Watch Forums. I admit, I kind of fueled the discussion, but I was honestly shocked and a bit concerned when I learned Yahoo was using such metrics.

(1) If Yahoo! is tracking conversions and admittedly discounting prices based on that, who is to say they won't do the opposite? Who is to say Yahoo wont look at higher converting publishers and up the price on those clicks?

(2) If Yahoo! will go that far, why not take it a step further and share in an advertiser's success. By that I mean, increase the prices of ads for higher converting and more profitable advertisers.

My list can go on. But these are just some of the initial concerns that came to mind when I first heard this announcement. I had four emails to Yahoo!, with five responses. If this was Google, the noise in the forums would be a lot louder.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: See Yahoo Addresses Concerns Over New Search Ad Pricing Model for an update to this article.

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.

It appears that Yahoo! is now bolding the domain name in the search ads on the page.

For example, a search on ipods brings up dozens of ads, at the top and right side of the page. If you look at those ads, the domain names, under the ad descriptions, are all bold.

Here is a screen shot of the top ads and some of the right side ads, all showing bold domain names.

Is this a bug or new feature in Yahoo! Search?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Late last night, Yahoo's Panama release launched in Europe. We reported this was coming the other day, but now it is official.

Gabs documented the email notification to UK advertisers:

Yahoo! Europe today announces that its new sponsored search advertising platform has launched and that it has started upgrading European advertisers to the new campaign management console.

Nw, if advertisers go to the login page they will be presented with an early upgrade login area at https://login.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/en_GB. In addition, Yahoo Europe has a tailored Upgrade Centre for European advertisers.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums & DigitalPoint Forums.

A Search Engine Roundtable Forums thread reports that Yahoo! is testing our their Panama Search Marketing engine out in the United Kingdom.

I was at the launch of Panama in the US on October 17, 2006. Yahoo! planned to roll it out worldwide later, and the UK is coming soon.

Our moderator, gabs, was at a Yahoo! demonstration of Panama last week. He said;

I've just been @ yahoo ... For a demo of yahoo panama..

I will be launching very soon so we should see new algo's bouncing ads around a bit imho...

No date as yet

I suspect a launch in the UK by probably end of this quarter or early next quarter. These are guesses but if they are demonstrating it now, I suspect it is coming really soon.

Yahoo! has been emailing their UK advertisers warning them of this upgrade. The full text email can be seen at PPC blog, but here are two snippets of interest.

We launch our new ranking model successfully we have started running a limited test across our UK advertiser listings in which the display order of Sponsored Search listings in some keyword markets is based on factors other than bid.

Our new Sponsored Search system will be rolled out in the UK soon, beginning with advertiser migration later this quarter. We will be contacting you with more specific information as the rollout date approaches.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Last Wednesday, May 16th, Yahoo! Search Marketing went from long to short descriptions. They gave advertisers ample time and warning to adjust their descriptions, if they deem necessary.

I spotted a thread at WebmasterWorld showing that one advertiser is not happy with the results after the change.

My CTR since May 16 has fallen through the floor.

I assume this is because of the new short description policy.

To say the least, this particular advertiser is not happy. But there is only one post in that thread, no more complaints as of yet. I am curious, are others noticing any changes? Seeing a drop in CTR, sales, conversions or seeing an increase in CTR, sales or conversions? Or are you seeing no change at all?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A new WebmasterWorld thread has a single report of all his old Overture data being deleted.

I just got off the phone with an support rep from Yahoo. I was trying to pull some data from the old Overture system from 2005 and none of the reports were pulling up. The rep said that this data was deleted from their servers because they needed to make space for some other things.

A Yahoo! representative supposedly told him that the old Overture data from the old system has been deleted?

Is this true?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you have missed the announcement over a month ago, then here it is again. Yahoo! Search Marketing is switching the length of the description field for your ads. Your description will be shortened for you on May 16th, Wednesday, if you do not do it yourself. So it is important to go in and make sure your descriptions make sense after being cut down from 190 characters to the 70 character requirement.

YahooPete has posted the details in various forums including Search Engine Watch Forums, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Just a reminder here that as part of a rolling launch, we will soon require short descriptions for ALL new or modified Sponsored Search ads. These changes could be seen as early as 5/16/07. Keep in mind that if a short description is not provided by the end of June 2007, we will automatically cut off your ad description at the nearest complete word, followed by an ellipsis, when it is displayed on Yahoo!. This may impact your ad quality and, potentially, your position in search results.

Points to keep in mind:
- Titles will continue to have a maximum of 40 characters.
- Short descriptions are required when creating or modifying an ad. Short descriptions must consist of 70 characters or less.
- Display URLs must be 35 characters or less.

The change is not huge but it can be significant, here is a visualization of the change.

For more information on how to change your ads see the Yahoo Help section.

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

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has hearsay on Yahoo working on a new keyword tool that will show search volume data.

This has been sorely missed since Yahoo stopped updating the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool with search volume data.

I was talking to a rep at Yahoo! and voicing my concern about the removal of the Keyword Selector Tool removal and reinstatement. She told me that they are currently working on a new version of the tool that will retain the keyword search volume and introduce some more robust functionality as well.

But at the same time, a "platinum rep" told someone else that "thinking" about it, but have nothing started yet.

I personally have not heard more outside of what I posted here the other day. So I doubt they are currently working on a new keyword tool at this moment.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

The other day I reported that Yahoo! Removes UK Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool which was not exactly right. The tool is still live, but it moved addresses and is officially no longer supported by Yahoo!

I updated the post with a statement from Yahoo!, saying;

Since the launch of the new Sponsored Search system, Yahoo! Search Marketing no longer supports the tool, therefore the data is not reflective of the true volume of traffic throughout the network. With the new Sponsored Search system now in place, more tailored keyword data tools are being explored for the future.

Yahoo! said they would update the tool one last time with data from January 2007. Yahoo! explained that you can get forecasting data "within Panama and through our APIs is a great alternative to Keyword Selector Tool in terms of providing keyword data points for performance and cost."

The WebmasterWorld thread has an update from YahooPete on the topic, where he reiterated this message.

With the launch of the new Sponsored Search system, the Keyword Selector Tool is no longer supported by Yahoo! Search Marketing. Thus, the data it would show for the current month is not reflective of the true volume of traffic on our network.

We plan to soon adjust the tool to show information from January 2007, as this is the last month from which we can provide search data. In the interim, we recommend that you use the more robust forecasting capabilities in the new Sponsored Search to gain insight into expected performance.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Yahoo! has removed the UK version of the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool.

The tool used to load over at http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ but now it appears to just time out for me and those trying to access it.

It may be just a server issue or it may be a sign that Yahoo will also be replacing this UK version with a new one. Which they promised us after taking the Overture US tool offline.

We know they will begin expanding the Panama solution to the UK soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: A reader commented explaining that Yahoo changed the URL of the tool to http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ the other day.

Continue reading "Yahoo! Removes UK Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool"

This morning, Yahoo will officially announce an acquisition of Right Media which rival's Google's acquisition of DoubleClick. Danny discussed the purchase on Search Engine Land, saying that they purchased these outside companies because their own internal ad networks weren't good enough:

Both moves to me underscore how neither players' own existing ad networks have apparently been good enough for their display ambitions.

In the Search Engine Land article, Danny walks through why DoubleClick was a good match for Google: a large user base, an ad exchange network, and possible competition. Yahoo's acquisition is a "democratic move for ad sales."

A DigitalPoint Forums post references the New York Times article that also broke the story. DigitalPoint members wonder what will be expected of Microsoft, especially since they recently challenged Google for its DoubleClick acquisition. Interestingly, Yahoo! responded with an acquisition of its own, but Microsoft only asked the government to examine the purchase. I think that the strategic acquisition was the way to go here.

On WebmasterWorld, however, members question the leadership of Terry Semel and believe that Yahoo! is going to continually do worse. Again, I think that if you compare Yahoo to Microsoft, Yahoo took lemons and made lemonade. Microsoft just stared at the lemons and brought them to the government for review.

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld.

I have received a couple emails asking me about what Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers are noticing since the change from Overture to Panama.

Don't get me wrong, we covered it a lot at Search Engine Land but there has not been much discussion at the forums on it. Here are the reports I have found on this:

• Preliminary Scorecard: How Effective Is Yahoo's Panama Upgrade?, Search Engine Land
• Yahoo! Panama First Look, Search Marketing Trends
• Feb 2007 Results: Yahoo ‘Panama’ Siezes Back Share From Google, Rimm-Kaufman Group Blog

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has feedback from four different SEMs all saying that they noticed a drop in volume from Yahoo! Search Marketing since the Panama upgrade.

For me, I think the interface is much better and the account maitenance is somewhat easier. As far as performance, we are down quite a bit from where we were pre-Panama. ROI is similar, but volume is way down.

Our volume is way down too. We are actually at the point of deciding if it's even worth my time to manage Yahoo's campaigns any longer.

I've also noticed an extreme decrease in volume.

Now is this related to the the addition of the Yahoo Panama quality score factors or Panama itself, is hard to answer. But these reports are a bit upsetting.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

As you know, Yahoo! partnered with eBay and PayPal to create Yahoo Checkout. By signing up with Yahoo! PayPal Checkout, you can get a shopping cart icon in your Yahoo! Search Marketing ads.

This is basically how Google Checkout worked when it first started. Then I looked into if there were any benefits to the Google Checkout icon on your AdWords campaigns. In short, some people saw an increase in traffic, with a static level on conversions; which means they saw more sales.

My question is now, does Yahoo Checkout have the same impact? Increase in traffic, same level of conversions, but an increase in sales due to the traffic increase?

There is a forum thread at WebmasterWorld waiting to be filled up with feedback from Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers who use Yahoo Checkout.

If you are advertising over at Yahoo! Search Marketing, it is important you are aware of the changes coming up with how the sponsored listings descriptions will be handled. The Yahoo's Search Marketing blog has an excellent write up named Think Short where they describe that the descriptions of the ads, in June of this year will default to 70 characters.

Any ad changes made in May of this year will require you to enter in a short description. If you do not make an ad change in May, then Yahoo! will cut your long description down from 190 characters to the 70 character requirement.

YahooPete has posted this information at both Search Engine Watch Forums, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Starting in May 2007 we will require short descriptions for ALL new or modified ads in our new advertising system.

Starting in June 2007 Yahoo! Search will only show short descriptions or up to 70 characters of the long description. Accordingly, we highly recommend that you include a short description in your ad if you have not done so already. Long descriptions will continue to be shown on some of our external distribution partner web sites. Our goal is to help improve the overall search experience. We have found that shorter descriptions have been a best practice in the past.

What’s changing?

•Titles will continue to be 40 characters or less.
•Short descriptions are now required when creating or modifying an ad; short descriptions must be 70 characters or less.
•Display URLs must be 35 characters or less.

We’ve posted some helpful tips on short descriptions at the following link:

Think Short post at Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2007/04/05/think-short/

Short Descriptions Overview
http://help.yahoo.com/help/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/start/overview_shortdesc.html

If a short description is not provided by the end of June 2007, we will automatically cut-off your ad on Yahoo! Search, which may impact your ad quality and potentially your ranking. So get started now by adding short descriptions to your existing ads to guarantee that your most important information is included.

Big heads up to advertisers!

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

In the old days of the Pay Per Click management days, you used to hear the phrase - "set it and forget it." Meaning, you set up your pay per click campaign in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and others. Then you watch it for a couple weeks, make some tweaks and when things are running smoothly, you just walk away and let it run itself.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if the "set it and forget it" practice still works? With Google AdWords changing their algorithms every 6 months or so. With Yahoo! recently upgrading to a new algorithm in Panama. With adCenter launching with more features to shake a stick at... Does the "set it and forget it" methodology still apply?

It appears not.

Everyone in the thread seems to agree that for the most part, that concept is long gone. You at least have to check in weekly for even the smallest campaigns. I like netmeg's response:

I have one client who has set a rather small (in my opinion, TOO small, considering the breadth of his product line) daily budget for what he wants to spend on AdWords, and he hired me a couple years ago to fix his existing AdWords account and kind of oversee it. I added as many phrases as I felt I could within the strictures of his low budget, and then I turned the Budget Optimizer on most of his campaigns, and just let it run. He absolutely will not raise the budget, so there was a limit to what I could do with it. Once a week I go in to see if anything looks weird, and anything that has gone inactive I might have to move off to a separate campaign (that's not on Budget Optimizer) in order to raise the CPC, but that's about it. It means a lot of his positions are down in the 5-8 range, or even lower - but it probably gets him more overall clicks for the money, and all I can do is hope that when people click on the ads, if they don't buy what they're clicking on, they'll see something else they're interested in. In any case, we do get conversions, and the client seems to be fairly satisfied with it. It's not the way I prefer to do it, but it's what I could do with what was handed me.

That's the closest to auto-pilot that I can get.

Would love to hear more on this from others.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

When upgrading to Yahoo!'s new Panama release, many are opting to use their Google AdWords structure as opposed to converting from their Overture campaigns. Why? Because AdWords, in structure, is more similar to Panama than is Overture. So the first step is to export your Google AdWords campaign and then send it off to Yahoo! to import for you.

How does one export their ads from Google? A WebmasterWorld thread has the answer.

The first step is to download Google AdWords Editor because this desktop product gives you the best ability to export your data from Google.

Then you can follow these steps to export your data from Google. I assume you use the export to CSV option.

Use Export to CSV to show your account and changes to someone without AdWords Editor, or if you simply need access to a file with your current account data, including your unposted changes. To export as a .csv file, follow these steps:

1. Go to the File Menu > Export to CSV. You can either download the whole account or the campaign or ad group that is currently selected in the tree view.
   
2. Select the location where you'd like to save your snapshot, change the file name if desired, and click Save.
   
3. For the best view of your account data, open Excel, then go to the File Menu and open your exported file.
   

Then you ask Yahoo! to upload the data for you. If they say no, show them that they said they would at Yahoo! To Offer One Time Free Bulk Keyword Upload To Customers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if it is possible to achieve a perfect, five out of five, quality score in Yahoo!'s new Search Marketing PPC engine.

The simple answer is yes, it is possible and many have already noticed a perfect 5 out of 5.

What is interesting is that some have seen a 5 out of 5, but have not seen any bid drops.

I've got several groups with 5/5, but can't find any bids dropping.

This is possible, I suspect, if this ad has always been a five out of five.

Based on some of the feedback, the click through rate is not the only thing determining your quality score.

I have a couple of 5/5 keywords, but also some that have 1/5 and CTRs of 20%+!

As you can see from this document the quality score is made up of several but I always assume CTR was the most important.

More discussion on Yahoo!'s quality score here and here and here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I covered this in November 2006, Grandfathered Bids in Yahoo! Search Marketing Do Not Carry To Panama.

But recent questions came up at WebmasterWorld asking;

I can't find if the grandfathered bids are meant to be respected after the upgrade or not? All min ehave been set to the minimum 0.10 when before many were 0.05, 0.07 etc.

So just another heads up, no more grandfathered bids with the release of panama.

YahooPete confirms:

Thanks for your feedback and questions on grandfathered bids and the minimum bid requirement.

After years of supporting legacy bids that were lower than our current minimum bid requirement of $0.10, we now require all keyword bids to be at least $0.10 for all accounts that have been upgraded to the new search marketing system .

To learn more about bidding and Yahoo!’s new ranking model in the U.S., please check out the following tutorial:

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/ysm/cn/tu/tutorial_bidding4.swf?swp=1&ref=DTCalert

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Brett Tabke posted a thread at WebmasterWorld informing us that Yahoo! has "tweaked" their Yahoo Search Submit Basic program. The main change, he said, was that they added detailed analytics.

The new program seems to also have changed names from "express" to "basic." The new page at http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srchsb/ssb_pr.php shows slightly different information.

Here is the before:

Here is the after:

Some of the reaction is positive and some is negative overall of paid inclusion programs. But let me point out one specific one:

Wow, this is very big news Brett -- thanks for sharing! The analytics alone would make it worth the price of admission based on what I'm seeing. I was a big fan of the old PT subscriptions. Not that Yahoo's a bit bigger, I'm all for this.

...Never thought I'd actually welcome paid submissions again with open arms, but I guess that's where we're at these days...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: YahooPete posted in the forum confirming this:

Thanks for featuring our new Search Submit program and your positive comments. Based on valuable customer feedback, we have launched a new program called Search Submit Basic. As stated in previous posts, through Search Submit Basic, customers can submit up to 5 URLs for inclusion in the Yahoo! index (of course assuming content meets Yahoo!’s Content Quality guidelines), receive essential insights and email support for a flat yearly fee of $49 per URL.

Just to clarify, Search Submit Express is still part of the Search Submit product family and will continue to be supported for existing customers who are currently in the program. We are working on enhancements to Search Submit Express, and will not be accepting new enrollments into Search Submit Express.

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 relatively old Search Engine Watch Forums thread that has a new post from Discovery with some nice information. He was originally wondering why his geo targeted campaign towards Texas was sending zero traffic to his site and zero impressions on his ad.

Yahoo! informed him he was being way to specific with his campaign.

What Discovery did was created one campaign that was:

1. Geo targeted to Texas
2. Uses Texas specific keyword qualifiers
3. Created a Texas specific landing page

Yahoo! recommended that he create two different campaigns. A campaign for that was geo targeted towards Texas, using the geotargetting tools. And another campaign that uses Texas specific keyword qualifiers.

That method worked, Discovery is now getting traffic, but the traffic isn't converting as well as one would like.

Why did the previous method not work? I suspect it may have to do with it possibly being rare for some Texans to search using the word Texas. So imagine, you live in Texas and you are looking for a local auto insurance company. Would you search "texas car insurance" or "car insurance"? I am not sure - I am a bit too involved in search to be considered the typical searcher...

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread shares with us that an advertiser noticed his client's credit card was hit up 42 times for a charge of $1,000. So he was billed 42 time $1,000, totaling $42,000.

YahooSarah, the official Yahoo! Search Marketing Representative, came in to explain:

Yahoo! experienced a technical issue that caused the credit cards of a few advertisers to be charged incorrectly on Wednesday, February 14. Some credit cards were authorized for one or more charges in error.

We caught this early and were able to halt the process before the charges were actually completed. We’re very sorry for any issues this might have caused you and we're doing everything possible to completely resolve the situation as quickly as possible, and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Please keep in mind that during a credit card transaction such as this, an "authorization hold" is placed against the card (similar to when you check into a hotel, and a hold is placed against your card for potential incidental charges). These authorization holds will automatically be removed from your credit card account, usually within three to seven business days. If you are finding that the authorization hold is causing you inconvenience in any way, we encourage you to contact us at 866-YAHOO-SM (866-924-6676), and we will be happy to assist you in contacting your credit card's issuing bank to manually remove the authorization (that said, a bank may take as long as 48 hours to completely remove the authorizations).

Thanks
YahooSarah

So, the cards were not actually charged yet, but they had "authorized holds" on them that meant if this person's spend limit was $42,000, he would not be allowed to charge more items on his card until the authorization was cancelled or paid in full.

Yahoo! did say that they "automatically be removed from your credit card account," and if they have not been removed, you can contact Yahoo!

This was a serious, serious bug and it doesn't seem all that wide spread. Kudos to Yahoo! for being upfront about it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

You all know that Panama's quality score launched this past Monday, and now Yahoo! sponsored ads should be ranked not just on bid price but also on a quality score metric. Some of our early feedback on Panama suggests that not much, in terms of the bidding environment, has changed - which serious surprised me.

But you as an SEM would love to take advantage of paying less and getting more. How can you possibly do that? Boost your quality score.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some more explanation on Yahoo!'s new quality score. YahooSarah explains:

Remember that more than click-through rate influences the quality of an ad: The quality of an ad is determined relative to other ads displayed at the same time by both its expected performance going forward and its historical performance. Historical performance data was not purged on February 5, but as time passes, the data generated after the launch of the new ranking model will have the strongest influence on ad quality calculations.

The time it takes to take both expected and historical performance into account to measure ad quality depends on the volume of searches related to a keyword. Keywords with lots of daily searches often generate enough data in a relatively short period of time until historical performance is a stronger factor for ad quality within that marketplace.

And no, the data used to determine ad quality is not “purged” at the beginning of a new month.

Most of this was disclosed before, but it can't hurt to drive the message home.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Monday night at 6pm (EST), Yahoo! launched the new ranking algorithm that brings in a quality component to ranking the sponsored ads. It has been over a day now and there is still very little feedback in the search forums on how this is affecting advertisers.

I can honestly say I am shocked by how quiet the forums are. So far I found two threads, but with just one response each, as to how their campaigns are running. I promise I will keep watching the threads and let you know what I find. But for my early findings...

A WebmasterWorld thread says:

from what i can see; i'm impressed. i'm giving this a couple weeks to give my final review..but i do have to say; so far so good. my compliments to yahoo.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread says:

Doing great, my ads have all jumped up a few places.

It helps when you see this next to your ads!

Over at Search Engine Land, Chris Sherman has a great write up named What Yahoo's Panama Update Means For Searchers, it makes for a good read.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

6pm (EST) today, sponsored ads displaying on Yahoo! Search results should be ranked based on both bid price and quality score. Today is February 5th the day the transition is suppose to happen.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a link to a NY Times article that says it should be starting around 3pm (PST) today or 6pm (EST). That is is less than 12 hours.

Are you ready?

There were reports at WebmasterWorld that Yahoo! tested the algorithm out last week. Which seems to have been confirmed by the NY Times;

Last Thursday, the company ran a test in which searches originating on the West Coast ran the new ad ranking system.

I saw the "war room" at Yahoo!'s office, and it is true what they say. Yahoo! will be watching very closely as they flip the switch.

Good luck everyone!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

At least for now, the Overture Keyword Selection Tool is now back online, I think as of yesterday some time.

Monday we reported some sporadic reports of the tool going offline for a bit. Then on Wednesday we reported Yahoo!'s statement saying that the tool is basically dying and that Yahoo! is building a new one.

I suspect they fixed some of the issues now.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Monday we reported that Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool Offline? YahooSarah replied to that at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums explaining that the Overture tool is having issues but they are not taking it down.

I wanted to confirm that YSM's public keyword research tool (formerly known as the Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool- KST) continues to exist today and will continue to exist until we replace it with an improved product. Unfortunately, the responsiveness of this free tool is diminished due to the volume of hits it receives each day, therefore browsers may time out and error pages may appear but it doesn’t mean that this tool has been removed.

We do have plans to offer a new public keyword research tool, which would be hosted through Yahoo! and available to our API partners. We plan on making this new tool available later this year.

If you are an advertiser, I'd suggest using the keyword research tool within our platform (the old or new one).

In her message, it is clear that Yahoo! will be focusing their efforts on a new keyword tool, as opposed to getting the Overture tool working consistently.

The new Yahoo! tool will have an API, that will enable developers to integrate right into their campaigns, so I look forward to it. But it appears that Yahoo! will not continue to fully support the old, Overture tool.

Aaron Wall reports that Wordtracker is now offering a new free version of their keyword tool at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/. Defintely worth bookmarking, in my opinion.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

We know that when Yahoo! fully moves over from the old search marketing product (Overture) to the new one (Panama) that the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool won't be that useful anymore, but it still will have some valid and useful historical data. But it appears that reports around the web are showing that the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool is currently down.

Also, tools that depend on the Overture tool, are spitting back errors.

Examples include DigitalPoint's tool that is reporting under the "No data for phrase:" under the Overture column. Also, SEO Book's tool returns an error that reads;

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to www.inventory.overture.com:80 in /home/awall19/tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/clsOvertureSuggest.php on line 37

Many of the reports call for it being down for a few hours and then coming back up. But it is now down again. I wonder if Yahoo! will keep supporting this tool in the future.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: YahooSarah has replied to the threads stating:

Hey there, I wanted to confirm that YSM's public keyword research tool (formerly known as the Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool- KST) continues to exist today and will continue to exist until we replace it with an improved product. Unfortunately, the responsiveness of this free tool is diminished due to the volume of hits it receives each day, therefore browsers may time out and error pages may appear but it doesn’t mean that this tool has been removed.

We do have plans to offer a new public keyword research tool, which would be hosted through Yahoo! and available to our API partners. We plan on making this new tool available later this year.

If you are an advertiser, I'd suggest using the keyword research tool within our platform (the old or new one).

YahooSarah

There is a nice thread at Search Engine Watch Forums that has civilized and useful ideas and feedback for Yahoo! to add to their new search marketing product, Panama. Here are some of the ideas in short from the thread:

• Custom URL Management
• Date Range Selection Needs an "All Time" Feature
• Key Features Unavailable When Setting Up Campaigns
• Default Settings Are Expensive
• The Standard Match/Advanced Match and Content Match Hierarchal Layers are Confusing
• Add a Client Center
• Improve Custom Reporting
• URL Search
• Add Conversion data for ads
• Move keywords from one ad group to another
• Keyword tool with monthly searches
• Working in 2 seperate screens leads to errors
• and more...

That is some useful feedback...

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

We all knew that Yahoo! would be releasing the new ranking model for their sponsored listings in the first quarter of this year, but honestly, I am surprised it is towards the beginning of the 1st quarter. Word comes via a Yahoo Press Release that the new ranking model will be in place February 5, 2007 - that is right around the corner, less than two weeks!

So what do you need to know? Well, instead of reading my detailed notes on Panama, maybe you want a quick summary... A WebmasterWorld thread has a post by poster_boy with a great summary:

Here's a quick summary of this important change: * Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad's rank in search results beginning February 5, 2007. * This will replace the current method, in which ads in search results are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position). * This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the quality of your ads. * By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and/or a lower cost for your ads.

What is "Ad Quality"?
Ad quality is determined by:

1. The ad's historical performance - its click-through rate relative to competitors and normalized for position.
2. The ad's expected performance - determined by various relevance factors considered by Yahoo!'s ranking algorithms, relative to o