“We received your e-mail, and we apologize for the time this process is taking, but please rest assured that we are still completing the steps we discussed in our e-mail on 5/15.

Those sites you e-mailed to us are being unmapped to unrelated sites like yours, and we are conducting an investigation into any click charges you received from those sites. We will add these four new sites to our investigation. When this process is complete, we will be in touch with a resolution we believe will be satisfactory. This is a very thorough process and it may take another 10-12 business days to complete.

We appreciate your patience during our efforts to resolve this problem. If you have any other questions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our office at 866-924-6676 , Monday-Friday 6am-6pm and Saturday 7am-4pm, Pacific Standard Time.

Sincerely,

Howard Thomas
Customer Solutions
Yahoo! Search Marketing”

Pitty YSM interface.

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 content network. 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.

1. Limiting “negative keywords” to fifty per campaign level and fifty per ad for a total of one hundred keywords. First off, anyone who knows anything about good database management knows that if you can provide fifty, you can provide five hundred or a thousand or five thousand – it is just data rows. With a drive of showing up in the most relevant places, I have been rigorous in my discerning non-converting or non-relevant keywords and excluding them.

On Google, I currently have 546 negative keywords. The result: a September click through rate of 9.89%. With Yahoo, my CTR was 1.66%. The accounts are setup the same way and both accounts are opted out of the content network. This is as close to an apples to apples comparison that can be made (despite the lack of transparency from both Google and Yahoo). This is a consistent CTR for both platforms. To me, this is a function of the quality of the sites providing traffic as well as the ability to provide direction to those sites to provide more targeted traffic. The only two companies that make out by providing non-targeted traffic is the platform (Yahoo or Google) and the publisher who shares the revenue.

Further to this point, in reviewing my account, I was seeing negative keywords that were still receiving traffic. After digging in, I discerned this traffic was from Yahoo’s partners. I spoke with William O’Tyghe from Yahoo who explained there was a “glitch” in the system where it was not always recognizing negative keywords. He immediately made a $25 credit available to me to be placed on my account. For some people, this may be an appropriate response. For me, when I’ve spent over $5,000 in just the past month with Yahoo, this is an unacceptable solution. I now need to provide my weblogs, so they can review them and discern a credit on the account from the first day that I had loaded negative keywords on the account. Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but how can I be sure that they ONLY look at the negative keywords related to their traffic.

Apparently, this “glitch” was resolved as of October 1, 2007. I would suggest that anyone that had negative keywords activated on their account review to see if you received traffic from these words that should have been excluded. And, further, if you aren’t using negative keywords, you should start using them as it will provide for more relevant traffic to your site.

Finally, I am disappointed that a publicly traded company (or any company for that matter) could have a “glitch” in one of their core product enhancements and not be responsible to notify their customer base. It was only by accident that I found out and I wonder how many others are affected by such an issue.

2. Limiting the ability to block domains at 250 domains. Again, I can’t understand this as a database issue that would inherently need to limit the number of domains. If Yahoo sees the need by Advertisers to block domains, why would there be a limit on this function? I can only imagine this limit relates to a potential loss in revenue. As I review my traffic since June, there are 1828 sources of referred traffic from Yahoo. These resulted in 7918 of the 12,049 clicks sent to my site. These convert into leads thirty-five percent less than “normal” search traffic on the site. A select few perform at a higher rate than the norm (and I’ll be happy to continue to use them), while almost all of the rest have a significantly higher bounce rate and no conversions. The problem is that it is a large array of sites each referring a few clicks, which is why the program doesn’t work. As I review the actual referring sites, these are nothing more than advertising platforms displaying nothing but Yahoo advertising. According to Yahoo’s own program criteria – at least as I understand it, it would seem like these sites should not be involved in the program as they serve no other function than to display advertisements (i.e. no additional value for the consumer).

I have spoken with Yahoo about certain traffic domains and have been told that these qualify under “Keyword Domain” status. As I look at the domains, there are some legitimate ones in there where I can appreciate a user typing in “soccerstores” and being fed into that domain. But, there are so many others that make no sense to me. Here is a sample list of domains sending traffic:

Explaned.com
Insights1.com
Soccerbreakaway.com
Center101.net
Soccerequipment.cc
Premsoccer.com
Tuzosoccer.com
Faqcenter.info

While I can appreciate that some users don’t understand the difference between a search bar and the address bar, I simply don’t understand how (or the level) of individuals using obscure search terms that would result in this traffic from “Keyword domains.” Who searches for center101? For what? To me, this is more a result of search arbitrage on the part of these sites (buying keywords at low positions to drive traffic to the site where people click on higher costing ads and the owner makes the spread from high to low pricing) or rings of domains that feed each other traffic while not allowing the consumer to escape. Nonetheless, I should be able to make my site as relevant as possible by blocking domains that are not performing. At this stage, I have decided to block approximately 100 domains to monitor how traffic works on the site, if that traffic is replaced and what conversions look like. With so many sites providing small clicks with obvious flaws, I feel like I am being robbed hundreds of times daily multiplied by my CPC. It is disheartening that Yahoo understands the issue and yet won’t go to the full length to stop it.

I am concerned that as I limit traffic from one source that another non-relevant source will take its place. These domain owners are cagey and will find a way around this program by shifting traffic from domain to domain. Without the ability to continually update non-performing traffic, this will always be an issue for Yahoo advertisers.

I also find their disclaimer interesting in that Yahoo cannot guarantee blocking these domains from sending traffic and that it can take up to three days to execute the request. While I’m hopeful of limiting this type of traffic (I began blocking on Tuesday, so I’ll be interested in the reports over the weekend), this doesn’t inspire lots of confidence. Why can’t they guarantee where my ads are displayed? Who is in control here?

3. I find myself ultra-confused at the notion of discounted clicks that began in May. This is another example of the fox guarding the hen house. Yahoo acknowledges that sites provide poor traffic and convert poorly, hence the reason for discounting those clicks, which is determined at their discretion and a discount they apply. I would love to understand better the formula for discounting these clicks. How do they know? If the program is necessary in Yahoo’s eyes, why isn’t there more transparency to it? Please let us know what sites you are discounting, so we, as advertisers, can discern whether those economics work on our site. Perhaps, if a site (such as the domain keywords from above) was being discounted and the conversion rates made sense at that level I would continue with it knowing that it is less qualified traffic that converts at a lesser rate, but also costs much less. The lack of transparency simply makes me suspicious and forces me to shut down all lower performing traffic.

I would be interested in hearing from Yahoo to clarify these topics and the plan going forward to address the platform to make it more friendly for search advertisers. Thank you.