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October 15th, 2007
Block Your Ads from Appearing on Certain Sites“Blocked Domains” is now available for advertisers As you already know, your ads appear on a network of sites, not just on Yahoo.com. But you may not want your ads to appear on some sites—maybe they’re competitors of yours, or maybe they sell products or offer content with which you don’t want your brand to be associated. A new feature allows you to specify up to 250 websites or sections of websites in our partner distribution network on which you don’t want your ads to appear. These can be:
It applies to sites that are using either our Sponsored Search or Content Match products. Please note that the Yahoo.com domain remains unblockable. To block a domain, just follow these steps:
—Michael Mattis |
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112 Comments Add your own
1. Bill | October 15th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
how about ip addresses ?
2. David Joel | October 15th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
PLEASE send me list of your 250 largest partner domains.. I have no ideas what domains to block on my own…
PLEASE allow me to simply block ALL YOUR PARTNERS- I want to be on YAHOO alone– all ‘partner’ click thrus are a waste of money for me….whoever they are– I get thousanbds of clicks a day– I CAN NOT TAKE THE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHICH OF THOSE ARE YOUR PARTNERS AND THEN BLOCK THEM…
Your competitors allow the simple blocking of all partners–
Can I do that>?
3. james bowling | October 15th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
PLEASE send me list of your 250 largest partner domains.. I have no ideas what domains to block on my own…
PLEASE allow me to simply block ALL YOUR PARTNERS- I want to be on YAHOO alone– all ‘partner’ click thrus are a waste of money for me….whoever they are– I get thousanbds of clicks a day– I CAN NOT TAKE THE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHICH OF THOSE ARE YOUR PARTNERS AND THEN BLOCK THEM…
4. darin cale | October 15th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I agree with James, how are we supposed to know what 250 sites we can block. Send us a list!!!!!
5. Marcela | October 15th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Please send me the 250 domains we should block
6. Yahoo Advertiser | October 15th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
While I appreciate the effort in providing the ability to block domains, you need to provide a report of what websites generated the clicks in order for your customers to effectively block these sites or a listing of all partners with an option to block each. Simply providing a block domain feature but not providing a means to show where the clicks come from is a “half-hearted” solution. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and in the end you will come up with a better implementation.
I hope you guys can do better.
Yahoo Advertiser
7. ed f | October 15th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
me too, can I get that list ?
or just let me check a simple box for yahoo or Yahoo and partners .
thanks
8. Janet | October 15th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Lets have a list. What good is all of this if we don’t know who to block? It’s like pissing in the wind.
If you’re serious about this then let’s have the list. Or are you serious?
9. smallcompany | October 15th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Instead of some list, can we get reporting upgraded so it shows a breakdown of where our ads have been served? That way we would see where we get a good CTR so we may leave that particular domain ON. If it stays like this, after some time, people will figure domains (or they already know), but still they may not know how their traffic gets generated.
Thanks
10. Mike | October 15th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
we need information on all 250 domains,
1. The domain Names and locations they serve
2. Description of these domains
3. What these domains are intended for
11. dave | October 15th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
i agree with everyone here. how am i suppose to control where my site is advertised.. i’ve seen it on competitors sites too! i want it only on yahoo.. and thats it.. hopefully they can fix this.
12. Mashfactor | October 16th, 2007 at 1:32 am
How can I tell which partners to keep and which to block?
13. Ernie Shaw | October 16th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Yes please…a list would be helpful.
14. Bobbi Rullan | October 16th, 2007 at 3:38 am
I agree with all the comments pertaining to the 250 blocked domains. Obviously it is a good avenue, however, one sure needs to know what they are doing! Let’s make it simple by
checking Yahoo and partner sites. Personally, I think too much money has been wasted through invalid clicks on domains that I know nothing about.
15. havokb8 | October 16th, 2007 at 4:03 am
wow yeah me too i was all excited about this feature but then we have to figure them out on our own???????? HOW the hell do we figure out what sites our ads are even shown on???? Im with everyone else i just want my ads shown on yahoo wtf is this
16. havokb8 | October 16th, 2007 at 4:04 am
no really that is so gay we are really just supposed to “know” what domains you are showing our ads on?????????????? come ON
17. havokb8 | October 16th, 2007 at 4:06 am
wow nevermind who cares im sure alot of you were excited about this feature too…nevermind tho we just have to figure them out on our own how ridiculous….BYE BYE Yahoo search marketing you suck just delete my account now how stupid can this be seriously
18. Katherine | October 16th, 2007 at 4:20 am
What would you do if there are more then 250 you want off can I get those off also
19. Frustrated.... | October 16th, 2007 at 4:41 am
Guys….
You need to turn on analytics and then in the report area you will get the list of sites that are dirving traffic to you. This will give you a better idea of the sites sending YOU bad traffic. Yahoo’s top 250 list may have sites you really want to keep. There are some issues still with analytics (the Non-refered category still contains masked refered traffic), but you will get a lot better idea of who to block and who to keep.
What makes me mad is that I can only block 250 sites when I have had traffic from over 4200 in the last three months. 250 is NOT enough. I want unlimited so the large partners wont just “nask” to individual urls that I can’t then block because I have reached the 250 limit!!!!!!
20. Red | October 16th, 2007 at 5:03 am
But can we check in yahoo with any kind of report that where our ads are shown,somthing like placement report in google
21. Unholy | October 16th, 2007 at 5:11 am
I agree – the 250 domains would be helpful. I see the post about turning on Analytics but it is EXTREMELY UN-user friendly, involving installing a 3rd party software etc. I’ve currently cut down on my keywords to make my account last longer in the hopes Yahoo! improves the analytics feature. If not, I’m cancelling.
22. Shawn | October 16th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Another amazing useless feature from Yahoo… I don’t see anything anywhere to track this and I have antics on… I love adwords and the placement report and does not require any special settings. Does yahoo not know who is getting my money when someone clicks?
23. Bruno | October 16th, 2007 at 7:11 am
I am getting lots of (useless) clicks from hotjobs.yahoo.com but yahoo doesn’t let me block it because it is a Yahoo domain.
I am interested in c u s t o m e r s only and not in job applicants.
24. Caroline | October 16th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Yahoo cannot provide a list for all the different companies associated with our specific products. We are suppose to know on our own who to block. I will take the time to figure out how many if any to block. Blaming Yahoo for our ignorance of specific domains, does no good.
25. john | October 16th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Look muppets, if you are unable to create a tracking system of your own, so that you store the referral url, then you are in the wrong game.
I have created my own tracking system so I know exactly where 95% of all my traffic comes from.
Yahoo, Please do not give anybody a list of URL’s. Allow those of us who are good at our job to actually have an advantage, god knows it’s overdue!
26. Game Socks | October 16th, 2007 at 8:44 am
I’ll add my voice to those requesting a checkbox to block all partner searches.
I just started using Yahoo search marketing and am getting lots of useless clicks from non-Yahoo sites like Ebay, etc. I have the ability to check logs and can add domains to the list, which I am doing, but that’s extra work for me. And more importantly it eats away at my budget.
27. PrintGeeks | October 16th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I agree with everyone here. how am i suppose to control where my site is advertised.. I’ve seen it on competitors sites too!
28. Bill | October 16th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I agree that it would be nice to block all if you wanted to. I wouldn’t block all partners because there are some good ones. The best solution is to find the sites that are giving you the worst ROI and block them. I can see in my reports dozens of sites that I’ve received 1,000’s of clicks from over the past year with 0 orders. They will be blocked immediately. I’ve complained to Yahoo about these sites for years and finally they can be blocked. I just hope the 250 will be enough and it doesn’t turn into a domain name changing game with these loser sites.
29. Crober | October 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
I have to agree with just about ALL of the above. I sure would like a little guidance here.
30. kim | October 16th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Provide a list of your partner distributors!
31. Carl | October 16th, 2007 at 10:45 am
At the very least, you should have a button to block all partner sites. We should not have to enter each individual url if all we want is to be up on Yahoo! only. All your competitors allow us this simple method. Get with the times!
32. Carl | October 16th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Well, I really don’t think using foul language is going to accomplish anything, except to let others know how immature we really are. And “blasting” yahoo certainly isn’t going to impress anyone, either. I am very new at this sort of thing, but if my ad appears on a competitor’s page, then good for me! I have recieved clicks from all over the US and even the UK, and this is okay with me, even though I can’t have products shipped to the UK directly. The more places my ad appears, the more business I can generate. However, if my ad appears on a porn or adult only site, or on a gaming site, etc., then I’m upset. I operate a “family friendly” website, and have very high standards for where I would like to have my ads displayed.
Let’s all agree to disagree agreeably.
33. Darin Cale | October 16th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I just talked to a yahoo search marketing rep on the phone. KNOCK! KNOCK YAHOO! If you think I’m even going to attempt to go thru all my url’s and try to pick and choose which to block, you’re outta your mind!! I’d probably end up blocking all the ones I don’t want to block. As of a week ago my account has been shut off, and until you can do what you should have done along time ago (provide us with the 250 domains) you wont be making money off me. Get us the list please!!!!!!!
34. Bob C | October 16th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
This feature is of no use what so ever. A new click farm pops up every day. Why should we be responsible for having to hunt them down. They’re your so-called “partners”.
35. Shoo | October 16th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I do not understand why you have a limit on the Domains we can block. Your Partner network is just useless. Why don’t Yahoo give us the option not to go on your partner Network. I have cut down my spend by 90% with you . I was waiting for this feature but if this does not help and I have another set of worthless clicks from another set of 250 sites I will cancel all my spend and I recommend everyone does the same.
36. Bryon | October 16th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I would like to see an opt-in rather than an opt-out list. Allow us to block all of the partner network accept those that meet our personal criteria. Have your partners tell us who they are and why we should want to receive clicks from their site.
My problem is not with legitimate websites, it is with the click farms. Eliminating those is like playing whack-a-mole.
37. Tim | October 16th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The old overture system let you opt out of all partner websites. Since the new system forced us into partner clicks, I have noticed a significant drop in ROI. As a result I have pulled back our budget with the new system. If we could opt out of all partner sites, we would increase our budget and CPC since I know our clicks would be higher quality. This new system is letting partner sites bring down the level of quality for Yahoo.com Search.
38. thecatandkittenstore | October 16th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I agree please give us the list, I also wated thousands in the last yaar!! Send list!
39. Mike | October 16th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Agreed with most here. I have tracking, web logs, and analyzers and know how to use them. I can sit here and pick through the lists and block the domains where I don’t want my ads to display. The big question for me I guess is why should I? I am the paying customer. I have been spending a good amount with Yahoo every year for many years. The suggestion that I should track down and block Yahoo’s partner sites by myself feels like a slap in the face to me. There should be some sort of opt in / out selection for us. Or at the very least, a list available for us to peruse, copy and paste. I think that after all this time and money spent that I have purchased a little bit more effort from Yahoo. But what do I know? Highly disappointed and close to closing down and doubling up my spendings with Google.
40. Tim | October 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The more changes I see to the Google advertising system compared to Yahoo makes a great case to buy more Google stock and sell Yahoo.
41. John | October 16th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
It is very interesting to see the remarks here and the obvious dissatisfaction from users of Yahoo Advertising. The problem from the beginning with advertising on Yahoo and Google “Partner” sites is that the standards for approval of these sites is very low. Got Traffic? you’re approved! Got content? What difference does it make. This advertising bubble has been inflating for years and we as money paying advertisers have been feeding it, unwittingly, but nonetheless. It is the same as the housing market. Prices for Advertising are so overvalued and ROI is so worthless.
42. Mike Eyler | October 16th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I have to agree, I need the list. I too will be placing a budget into effect starting this week end. I’m not your largest account but than I’m not a small one either and I was looking forward to this capability to restrict my clicks to Yahoo. So, this is Tuesday and I assume you can have me a list by Saturday or I will just start shut things down!
43. Yahoo Search Marketing Le&hellip | October 16th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
[...] Yahoo Search Marketing Blog reports: A new feature allows you to specify up to 250 websites or sections of websites in our [...]
44. Site Translations | October 16th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I just blocked the domains that were bringing useless traffic to mu site. Thanks, Yahoo, for this great tool!
For those of you who don’t know which domains to block, I recommend you check your website traffic statistics to see where your traffic is coming from, and then check the bounce rate for the clicks you received from the referring sites. That should give you a pretty good idea of which traffic you are paying for that is actually not worth it.
I hope it helps….
45. Lma | October 16th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I just wanted to also request a list of the domains. I was prepared to check/uncheck boxes from a list of the 250 domains. Seems we all need that to be able to take advantage of this. Thanks.
46. Dave Park | October 16th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Please send the 250 domain names, I get way too many phone calls from people that don’t want my service.
47. Allan | October 17th, 2007 at 5:03 am
We need a report from you that shows which Partners are serving up our ads. That way we can block them if we have a problem.
At least the problem is being addressed. When we uncivered this a few months back it explian why our costs were skyrocketing, CTR’s falling off the cliff and a bunch of real crappy leads coming through.
48. David Joel | October 17th, 2007 at 7:51 am
We need OPT IN not OPT OUT functionality. Allow us to OPT IN to only those partners or category of partners we want and automatically exclude all others.
AND it is unfair for us to have to pay for a clik thru only to discover in our stats that it is a partner we don’t want…
By providing us a list of (even thousands) of partners (which I know Yahoo has), we could pick and choose to OPT IN to those we want without having to pay for a clik thru to appear in our stats and deduce that is a yahoo partner.
49. Mike | October 17th, 2007 at 8:57 am
250 domains does not even begin to make a dent in the crappy “partner” traffic we are getting. Back to the drawing board…
50. Brian Doyle | October 17th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Yahoo needs to make it simple and allow the advertiser to opt into or out of the partner sites with a check box, in addition to having the partner network with blocking option. We have had to cancel or severely lower our bids on the most important key words due to the unscrupulous partners that are re-sellers of the high cost , high volume key words. They operate as follows: They partner with Yahoo to show your ads. Your top keywords are offered which cost you approx .75 – $1.00 + per click. They then open an account with Google adwords and bid on the non-relevant, broad match, and low cost per click, and KEYWORDS THAT YOU HAVE OPTED OUT OF which they pay .06 per click, and then display your Yahoo ad for these top (most expensive) keywords. They also opt into oversea markets that you have opted out of and display your ad. I feel this is very wrong and unethical and we have talked to the Yahoo and Google reps and they won’t do anything about it. This is happening a lot, we found over 10 companies doing this with our ads. By allowing this to happen it will undermine the whole pay per click program and ultimately be less profitable to Yahoo and Google as the top advertisers start to opt out of there biggest campaigns to stop from getting ripped off. Its really simple to fix this by just allowing the advertiser to be on the partner network or not!
51. Tony | October 17th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
You guys are dolts…Really there are much worse words to call your ‘team of experts’…what the hell are you doing not providing a list? Again Yahoo has succeeded at looking like a clown in the eyes of its advertisers. Good job. Now provide a list or get rid this feature that is really only good for optimization companies.
52. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | October 17th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
[...] Search Marketing Home Blog Home Archives About the Blog « Block Your Ads from Appearing on Certain Sites October 17th, [...]
53. Rick | October 17th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
O.k. my first impression was I was pretty aggrevated with the way this has been launched, however if you have Google Analytics set up use that to pull who your visitors are. Then look through your traffic, i recommend a few months of data at minimum. You will see sites that have very low average time in site, high bounce rates, etc. Add those sites to the list. It was easy and now I hope we have cut down poor traffic in half if not more. This isn’t perfect but it is a decent start. I don’t even know if these sites are from Yahoo ads or not but the worst ones on my sites Analytics account are the following: toseeka.com, landing.trafficz.com (or trafficz.com), uncoverthenet.com, searchportal.information.com (or information.com) and findstuff.com….I have many more that provide 10 to 15 clicks a month and carry a 100% bounce rate. The average on my site is somewhere around 35 percent. Obviously something is fishy if every click bounces out without navigating the site. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on my blog I’ve provided.
Perhaps we can share poor traffic sources?
54. Rick | October 17th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
P.S.
Some of you are new at this. If anyone is interested I am willing to take a look at your traffic logs provided you have them and help you determine what may be poor traffic and what you may consider a value to your company. Use the blog site to get in touch. Good luck.
55. What to block in your Yah&hellip | October 17th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
[...] recently added the ability for advertisers to block domains in their search marketing accounts. At first I wasn’t sure how to use this feature, but after some [...]
56. Peter Harrett, | October 17th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Where can we find a list of all the sites that we show up at?
57. David | October 17th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I agree with these guys, give us something easy. Let us opt out of all blogs, or everything but Yahoo, or all commercial sites, or something. We are paying for these clicks and we don’t know where they’re coming from. Until now, I thought all my words were only showing up on Yahoo! Maybe the joke’s on me, or us.
58. Frank Gibbs | October 17th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Where can we find a list of all the sites that we show up at?
59. David Joel | October 18th, 2007 at 5:49 am
If someone wants to post the generic click mill domains on this blog that would help us all.
60. Dana | October 18th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Here is a tiny list of publishers from a search on the web.
You can begin with some of these.
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/network.php
61. Dana | October 18th, 2007 at 7:37 am
If you have analytics or some sort of web monitoring software the list is fairly easy to get from them. We use who’s on and the reports are great for telling us who’s on the site, how they go to the site, which search engine was used, what keyword was entered. Since Yahoo added this, in a matter of 2 minutes, I pulled the report, and saw for example http://www.freeged.com sent 52 people to the website, costing over $150.00 to us with no revenue generated because they were looking for something free, so the domain is now BLOCKED. I had 82 domains in a matter of seconds, analyze your traffic if you have some sort of traffic analyzer (webalizer comes free with most web hosting) for your domain to get a quick idea of who’s coming to your site and from where. The list that Yahoo provides will not help you entirely, you need to know what’s being fed from them, to another site, to another site, to blow the primary domain. Hope that helps a little.
62. LookingTrim | October 18th, 2007 at 9:35 am
You all need a third-party tracking software to for accurate referral reports – that is the only way to stop the click fraud that it sounds like you’re all experiencing.
Let me also give you some insight into search traffic quality:
Google is top dog
MSN doesn’t get enough
Yahoo really sucks
Ask is worthless
Good luck everyone!
63. The Dog Clothing Company | October 18th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Good point – but how can we find out about the sites that we show up at? This feature is worthless if we don’t know where we are showing up.
64. Ruth B | October 18th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Do what Google does or we’ll cancel our account and spend all the money on Google. Why can’t we just be allowed to advertise on Yahoo Search only and forget about all those so-called partners who are nothing but fraudsters? We want to advertise on Yahoo only, pure and simple.
65. andy anand | October 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Guys guys, simple economics, top honchos of yahoo depend on kickback from fake sites and directories, they care 2 hoots about advertisers. Yahoo are you listening give us the list of the sites in which we should opt in to advertise. e.g my company alone spends only 2% with you just because of this reason.
66. Rose Felice | October 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I too would like the blocked domain list.
67. Dana | October 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Google is crap with all the fake sites out their getting money for adsense.
Don’t waste money, quality leads comes from Yahoo, no doubt.
Ask – crap
MSN – nothing, zilch
All the others – crap
Get analytic software, if you run a website you shouldn’t be without it if you’re relying on PPC for lead generation. If you have that you can quickly determine which “partner” sites are sending you traffic, and BLOCK them. It’s your business, take control by analyzing your reports and make determinations OR keep wasting money. The feature is here and available, now you must do your part too and see what worthless feeder sites are sending you unwanted traffic and costing you a fortune.
Very simply weblogs can tell you that information, as your hosting provider, and you’ll block those sites and save money immediately.
68. Sherryl | October 19th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Someone mentioned sites like http://www.freeged.com
I thought opting out of the Content Network ads kept us off of these BS sites.
I agree with everyone else .. there are a gazillion websites out there. How are we supposed to know all the domains we would prefer to block without some sort of list?
The problem is these places like Yahoo are full of a lot people who may have a lot of computer sense .. but are short on COMMON sense!
C’mon guys .. get it together .. put up a list!
We need a list with the domains linked so we can actually check out the domain. Then there should be a box to the left to check for those domains we want to opt out of.
69. Chris Lee | October 19th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Anybody who wants to block the whole Yahoo search network is in my opinion totally nuts. You guys are using ppc to market your sites and products but don’t have any idea where your traffic’s coming from! Madness! I personally get great conversion from of the partner sites, sometimes getting twice the ROI i do from yahoo itself. If you dont have any analytics software your always going to get ripped off thats just the way it is. What Yahoo has done is a move forward without doubt, could they go further of course.
70. Steve Winter | October 19th, 2007 at 9:14 am
I hate the greedy scum at Google as much as anyone else, but what is this new garbage from Yahoo????
So Yahoo knows they have shabby search partners and click farms so bad that they set up an option for us to block them individually, but the caveat is that we have to figure out which are the click farms?
This is a new low even for Yahoo!
Can’t someone get the FTC involved here? Didn’t Overture get sued not that long ago for somewhat similar garbage?
71. EliteDGems | October 19th, 2007 at 9:20 am
My Yahoo ads are paused now. I also would like a list. I don’t know were my ads are being placed. I’ve analyzed my traffic and I’m not happy that I paid for clicks from sex and eBay websites. I’m tired of fake sites and directories. I’m busy enough running a business without having to track down Yahoo and their partners to be blocked.
72. Kat | October 19th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
list please
73. Kathy | October 20th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Ok, my ads are now paused. Totally bogus traffic coming from a variety of “affiliate” search engines – yeah, right. They should be called “affiliate rip offs”.
Yahoo, I have had ppc advertising for a long time with other sites and when there is bogus traffic, I get a refund. This is my first try with you and if you can’t get with the program, my business is elsewhere.
74. Julius Alba | October 20th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I have now paused my campaign until Yahoo can provide a better blocked domains feature. I would suggest all of you to do the same and hopefully this will force Yahoo to get its act together.
75. Michael | October 20th, 2007 at 8:42 am
If anyone gets this list, can you please email it to me. Thanks! service@humankindclothing.com
76. Michael | October 20th, 2007 at 8:46 am
If anyone gets a list, can you please forward it to me. Thanks!service@humankindclothing.com
77. Steve Winter | October 20th, 2007 at 8:56 am
This seems to be “uncensored” here so could anyone post a list of sites to be avoided?
Maybe we could collectively come up with a list?
78. Lance | October 20th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
PLEASE send me list of your 250 largest partner domains.. I have no ideas what domains to block on my own…
PLEASE allow me to simply block ALL YOUR PARTNERS- I want to be on YAHOO alone– all ‘partner’ click thrus are a waste of money for me….
Your competitors allow the simple blocking of all partners–
Can I do that?
79. John Choi | October 20th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Please send me the list containing the URL of all your partner companies. There’s no way I can block them unless i know who they are… and studying tracking logs and then blocking them defeats the purpose. I’ve already paid for those clicks. I shouldn’t have to pay for useless clicks to begin with.
80. Boycott | October 20th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Honestly,
I say we all boycott Yahoo search marketing until they allow us to block all partner sites and let them make money off the 3 morons above instead of the hundreds of us that agree that we want to know exactly what our money is getting spent on or will all demand a refund on the money thats in our accounts!! If we stick it out together then they will have to listen!! Lets stop talking it hit them where it hurts their pocketbook!! Of the 78 comments 2 or 3 complained about us which are probably yahoo reps that or people that spend $2-3 dollars a day and dont even realize they are the ones that they are the ones that have no idea how to run a website successfully!! I say we all shut our campaigns OFF until they block all partners and demand refunds!!
Also, instead of allowing us to block 250 of their thousands of click farm partners they should give us a list of partners and allow us to choose which partners sites WE WANT TO BE ON INSTEAD OF BLOCK!
And for the moron hat said Yahoo shouldnt give us a list:
Listen smart guy maybe you think its worth paying top $ per click to be on some cheesy site that make no sales what so ever but most of us are professionals in markets that cost $1-5 per click dont need to be spending hundreds to thousands of dollars because of morons like you and Yahoo Marketing Directors!!
I am going to demand a refund and if they say no that money will sit in my accounts for months if need be because I will not put another dime in a companies pocket that has no interest in my companies success but only in their own greed!!
81. Jerry Bryson | October 21st, 2007 at 7:59 am
I agree with all that a list of partners would be greatly helpful. Although Yahoo Search Marketing is not garnering as much of my cpc money as before, I think that this option will be helpful. Blocking all domains is not the answer. I lose a lot of quality clicks on Google because that is the only option. It would be benificial to all if we had both choices on all search engines.
82. John | October 21st, 2007 at 8:55 am
THIS IS A SCAM!
Partner sites offered by yahoo search marketing should completely be eliminated. In the last two years I have lost tens of thousands in useless clicks which I believe are coming from the same site owners.
I don’t want to advertise in these sites. Why Yahoo doesn’t just eliminate this crap?
83. Inessa | October 21st, 2007 at 10:23 am
I have Blocked http://www.ask.com one week ago, and I still get so many clicks from them. WHAT KIND OF DEAL IS THAT??? I did everything the Right Way and Blocked it completely. ask.com shows your adds to people who just want to read and NOT BUY. Thousand of Clicks are wasted and My MONEY are Wasted. WHY ARE my ADDS are Still there??? I monitor my clicks and I see it. These Clicks are NEVER MORE then one click and they are just stilling all my money. Yahoo say it could take 3 days for Domain to be Blocked, but it’s been Over 1 week now, and these Clicks are still there. That was my WISH to Block ask.com and it looks like their Promises to Block Domains just does not WORK!!! STOP Stealing my MONEY!!!
84. Jerry Bryson | October 21st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Did you block the subdomain as well? Looks like their ppc are using wzus.ask.com
85. Jerry Bryson | October 21st, 2007 at 12:24 pm
It also looks like ask.com sponsored searches are google ads. I just found an ad of mine that I don’t have on Yahoo, but forgot to limit ad to google.com
86. Susan | October 21st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
How can I get a list of these domains that I can block? The interface of Yahoo Advertising, this ridiculous traffic coming from everywhere that generates no sales, the money that I spend on this daily…is absolutely revolting. The last thing any of us need is MORE work to do! Can’t you all just make it EASY to read, EASY to understand, and efficient?
87. Inessa | October 21st, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I will try to do it this Way, THANKS SO MUCH!!! I just used Yahoo Instructions on how to Block. I’ll do it this way, May be it will help. I use Google all the Time, and when Yahoo is turn off, ask.com does not come up on my report at all, so in my mind it comes from Yahoo. Ones Again, THANK YOU for YOUR HELP and BEST REGARDS!!!
88. Kevin | October 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
You almost got it right but not quite. I don’t want ANY of your so called partners because most of them are cheats imo. How bout a BLOCK ALL feature. The reason you went down the tubes money wise (just look at our account over the years) is because you force us to use these so called partners regardless how loud we screamed we didn’t want too so we pulled back on our advertising dollars to give you a hint and watched your stocks tumble but you still don’t listen to what we want.
Send me a list of your partners please. I’ll look them over and see if you have any legitimate partners I want to stay with. Do you have a bulk upload system of blocking? You’ll need it.
89. Max Shinrock | October 22nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Kevin, and others:
Please insist on an opt-in list, not an opt-out list. We do not want to have to do any extra work finding which sites we don’t want to advertise on. We simply want a check list and we can pick which sites we want to appear on. Nice and simple.
The other way, is what Yahoo wants. They want to make is as difficult for you as possible to do this, thus preserving their ill-gotten revenue. Thieves. Don’t let them get away with it.
And to the others, who keep asking to see the “list of 250 sites”…folks, the list if provided, would be hundreds of thousands of sites, if not millions by now. This is why you can never protect yourself from this useless site exclusion tool the way it is currently set up.
DEMAND AN OPT-IN LIST NOW – IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN STOP BEING RIPPED OFF.
90. kelly | October 22nd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
How can I block other countries? I only ship to USA and Canada so all these other hits that I get from the rest of the world cost me money and are useless to me.
91. Jerry Mac | October 23rd, 2007 at 11:57 am
This is an update to my earlier in-depth post located here (#3):
http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2007/10/17/questions-and-answers-on-blocked-domains/#comments
So, I banned the domain “jerseyscatalog.com” last Tuesday as it was providing the highest volume of Yahoo traffic. Unfortunately, it came along with a significantly lower conversion percentage than our site average. In reviewing the site, I felt it was providing no consumer value and the metrics supported my belief. I was certainly anxious to take advantage of the program and rid my site of this unqualified traffic.
Based around Yahoo’s own guidelines that it may take up to three days to see the blocked domain disappear, I anticipated “jerseyscatalog.com” to no longer drive traffic as of Saturday. Well, this domain must have protected status as part of the “not guaranteed” disclaimer in the program guidelines or this could be another “glitch” in Yahoo’s programming.
Either way, my site’s enemy #1 jerseyscatalog.com continues to push unqualified traffic to my site daily. Since Saturday when the hemorrhaging should have ended, it has continued to send more traffic to the site and continued to cost my company money despite having taken the appropriate steps. I am even more frustrated that Yahoo has a program in place that it cannot execute or has certain domains it cannot block.
Again, I would be interested in hearing why the traffic has not ceased from this domain or why Yahoo cannot guarantee that all sites are able to be blocked. Yahoo?
92. brum | November 2nd, 2007 at 10:42 am
Hmm.. I have stoped my yahoo marketingsolutions account,
and I only was convinced now that it was right deal!
93. Anand | November 6th, 2007 at 6:33 am
If anyone gets this list, can you please email it to me. Thanks! anandcpr@yahoo.co.in
94. coglethorpe | November 20th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Yes, please PLEASE allow me to block ALL “partner network” sites with a single switch, like I can with the content match.
I don’t think I’ve gotten any interested customers from your so-called “parnter sites.” It is a huge waste of my company’s money.
We are about to expand our PPC marketing and we will be foreced to leave out Yahoo! Search Marketing unless we can resolve this issue.
95. John | December 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I agree with everyone here. Yahoo, please allow us to run our ads ONLY on Yahoo.com. The invalid clicks for these “search partners” is appalling (some of the domains I have excluded, and they still show up. Not very effective domain blocking Yahoo). Google AdWords offers this “search page only” feature, and advertisers use it. This is why advertisers trust Google more, and probably why Google is making tons of money, while Yahoo’s advertising revenue is suffering. PLEASE LISTEN to your paying customers, they are trying to tell you want they want.
96. senn | December 25th, 2007 at 9:57 am
There’s been some requests about getting a list of the search partners, or posting a list here, but I’m wondering if this will do any good. We’re probably talking about literally [b]1000s[/b] of these ‘clickmill’ sites. Ex: I’ve almost reached my 250 blocked sites after only a week since I’ve started blocking these sites. Many others are reporting the same thing. Adding to this problem is that these ‘clickmill’ sites seem to be keyword-targeted because they’re named (more or less) on what you’re trying to promote. So my list of 250 blocked domains will probably be completely different from someone else’s ‘250 blocked list’ because we’re in a completely different industry and bidding on totally different keywords.
The only solution is for Yahoo to allow us to opt out of these search partners completely. Most of these sites (99.9%) aren’t really even “search sites” to begin with. They’re similar in appearance to some of the sites that show up in google’s [b]content network[/b]. The kind of sites where you only see a directory of links and no real content. Yahoo needs to reclassify these “search partners” as content network sites as well. This way we’ll have the choice of opting out.
97. John | December 27th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Yes Senn (comment above), everything you said is absolutely correct. I have already filled up my 250 bad domains, and even this requires me to inspect my weblogs every day, and add these bogas partners to the list (clicks for which I’ve already paid for not to meantion).
***ATTENTION*** Everyone how wants a list:
Trust me, it will not help! Even after you fill up your 250 list, the bogas clicks will keep comming… everyday. I don’t know about you, but even if there was unlimited blocking, I don’t want to spend everyday finding them and adding them to the list. Yahoo WANTS to make this insanely inconvenient- They are making tons of money off of the “list wanting” people who don’t know better.
The only solution to this is for Yahoo to allow us to turn off ALL search partner sites. Are you listening Yahoo?
98. Monogram Cake Toppers | December 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am
I agree with everyone here. Yahoo, please allow us to run our ads ONLY on Yahoo.com. The invalid clicks for these “search partners” is appalling (some of the domains I have excluded, and they still show up. Not very effective domain blocking Yahoo). Google AdWords offers this “search page only” feature, and advertisers use it. This is why advertisers trust Google more, and probably why Google is making tons of money, while Yahoo’s advertising revenue is suffering. PLEASE LISTEN to your paying customers, they are trying to tell you want they want.
99. senn | December 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
***ATTENTION YAHOO!***
Following up on my previous post. I’m sure Yahoo is worried that if they make these changes (where we’re able to opt out of their search partner sites), there’d be a drop in revenue. WRONG. Currently the max bid prices I’ve set for Yahoo is HALF of what I’ve set for Google Adwords. The obvious reason is that Yahoo is sending me alot of junk traffic from their search partners while hGoogle is sending me much better converting quality traffic. If Yahoo ever changed to the same setup as Google, I guarantee advertisers will dramatically start increasing their bid prices on Yahoo which will more than make up for any sort of short-term drop in revenue. In fact, there may NOT even be any short term drop in revenue whatsoever. Why? As soon as Yahoo announces these big changes, all of the serious PPC advertisers will immediately start increasing their bid prices to get this quality better-converting traffic. And this will more than make up for any loss you (yahoo) will experience from the opt-outs of your search partners. Yahoo, I guarantee you will make more $$$ in the long run because of this dramatic increase in bid prices that advertisers will be more than willing to pay for. Yahoo, you need to think in the long-term. There’s no reason to be afraid in making these changes and doing the right thing.
100. Decorative Switchplates | January 6th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Yahoo, if I for one was provided with an online opt-in list, I would take the time to check each site out personally and decide if I was willing to have my ads shown or not..
101. jon | June 6th, 2008 at 2:47 am
yahoo really needs to have it so you can select your ads to show on only Yahoo, or Yahoo and Yahoo’s “partners.” Then if you select partners you should be able to block out sites there, and as many as you would like. The 250 limit is quite useless. There are so many dodgy people taking advantages of these holes in Yahoo, and surely making big money from advertisers that don’t have the time to check their logs and analyze every click.
They should also have some option where you can select from a list of their top sponsered search sites, and allow you select certain ones.
102. Gale | October 21st, 2008 at 5:16 am
This is a very good feature! All these consolidated directories which have no content are total waste to me. I don’t want my ad even appear there!
103. Ian Sims | December 12th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Has anyone put together a list of these crap sites yet? If so can you post a URL – I’m fed up having to add new rubbish to my blocked domains list every single day..after paying for the priviledge of a click.
All I want is to appear on Yahoo pages
104. JW | December 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
You guys are idiots, you need to be using your own tracking, and look at the referrers, and sort through which don’t convert and which do. There is not 250 domains of partners, there are 100,000’s of partner domains and you can block up to 500 now. Yes, opting out of the partner network, like Google could be a good option, but on the other hand, not all partners are bad, some convert great, even better than yahoo.com, such as a highly targeted parked domain.
105. Funeral Man | January 31st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I’ve seen some lists of the “worst” major partners at a few of the big internet marketing sites. Searching yahoo will find them for you easily enough
106. Phone Jammer | September 19th, 2009 at 5:09 am
BTW, the only way to protect yourself from annoying calls and spy gadgets is to use Mobile Jammer
107. Yahoo’s Ad Delivery&hellip | September 19th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
[...] for the URLs displaying your ads. Use this report to understand which domains to block (via “Blocked Domains” [...]
108. Bryan | October 5th, 2009 at 3:34 am
How do I block answers.yahoo.com from displaying my ads? Is this a partner site, and so far all I get is you can not block yahoo domains. I don’t know about all of you, but Answers is displaying my ads more than any other domain. Check in the reporting Tab for your own campaigns. I just started working with YSM again this week. I started a campaign, and Answers displayed my ad 35,000 times yesturday, several times any other domain. How can I stop this from happening again tomorrow?
109. Sacramento water damage | November 11th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
That’s the greatest bit of news I’ve heard in a while – I always thought you had to advertise on the partner sites so I have never looked into it. That makes a big difference being able to control this.
110. El Dorado Hills water damage | November 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Official statement from Yahoo:
“You can block up to 250 domains. This doesn’t mean that there are exactly 250 domains that you should block, or that there are just 250 domains in our partner distribution network. It means that you have the option to block up to 250 domains of your choice. At this time, however, you may not block IP addresses, Yahoo! domains, or opt out of the Yahoo! partner distribution network as a whole. Also, we do not make available a list of all Yahoo! distribution partners—there are simply too many, plus the list is ever-changing.”
111. Puroclean | November 11th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Most of Yahoo’s “search partners” spawn from the online porn and gambling industry and are responsible for significantly more click fraud than Yahoo.com. By default, when you sign up with to advertise with Yahoo, you are also signing up to advertise with their search partners.
112. pat2346 | December 4th, 2009 at 12:16 am
You can find a list of poor quality site by your self
Check here
http://pat2346.blogspot.com/2009/12/clear-your-poor-traffic-qulity-from.html
Thanks
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