Reserve Prices

Minimum bids no longer fixed at $.10 for Sponsored Search

If you go to any auction, whether it’s Sotheby’s, eBay or your rural county’s hog auction, there’s usually a reserve price (or minimum bid) set according to what is believed to be the minimum value of the product. It’s their way of making sure that no one walks away with a cheap Van Gogh just because people aren’t lifting those paddles fast enough.

Following the auction model, we are changing the way we set the minimum bids required to participate in a Sponsored Search keyword market. In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢.

What your minimum bid means

An auction house has guidelines it keeps in mind when it sets a minimum bid, or the reserve price—how rare a painting is, how famous the guy who painted it is, things like that. We have guidelines that help us set minimum bids, too. Minimum bids can be based on multiple factors, including the quality of the keyword and its value—or how much we think that keyword is worth to its bidders. Here’s how we do it:

Quality—If you haven’t noticed before, we like quality. High quality generally means that your ads are being clicked more often, relative to your competitors. And that usually means that searchers are finding what they want more readily. So we try to reward quality—first with higher rankings and lower costs, and now, potentially, with lower minimum bids.

Value—While figuring out the value of a keyword can be complicated, we may look at a number of things to determine what it’s worth: for example, how many advertisers are bidding on your keyword, and what they’re willing to pay for it. (Note: we do not use conversion data to determine minimum bids.)

A keyword term becomes “active”—switched “on” in the system and eligible for display—when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. Keywords become inactive when your bid falls below your minimum. You will be notified in an alert on your Account Dashboard if your bid is about to drop below your minimum, and you’ll have a grace period of up to a few days to raise your bid to keep your keyword active.

What you can do to prepare

A lot of the best practices that are always important in search marketing are especially important when you’re managing your minimum bids. Here are some of the best ways to manage your account:

Get to know your keywords and their value. Since variable minimum bids may be set for each of your keywords, it is important to know which ones work best for your business.

Improve your ad quality. Better ad quality can potentially translate into lower minimum bids. Plus, it also affects the price you pay per click and your ads’ position in search results.

Learn about updates to the account interface. To help make your bids easier to manage, we are offering some enhancements to your account interface. These include a new search and management tool that allows you to find keywords that are below the minimum bid—bids too low for your keyword to become active—within a selected ad group or campaign.

For more about this change, read our FAQs.

—The Team

Posted by Administrator

[ Categories: Updates & Enhancements ]
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98 Comments Add your own

1. Arıtürk » Coming &hellip | February 26th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

[…] We’ve posted a more detailed article on the new features on our Yahoo! Search Marketing blog: http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2008/02/26/minimum-bids/ […]
2. andy pugh | February 26th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

In my opinion this change will only cause what will look like a bid war for key words.It will likely push the price up extremely high for what are right now a fair value.online business is already hard enough with all the competition and we are constantly having to come up with and research new ways to market to keep cost down and conversion up.Now we not only have to research key words, but keep up with how they are bid on too!This is too much to ask for out of general marketers.I hope i’m wrong on how this looks.Thanks
3. woozor weather | February 26th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

Hope my keywords will not be too high priced… Or I will have to change my website :p
4. john | February 26th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

This is terrible. I’m going back to Google.
5. dd | February 26th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

This is exactly what i hate google adwords and why i use yahoo first and now yahoo using the same exact techniques.
6. Charly | February 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am

Yeah, exactly, this is why I don’t use google. I hate this!!!!
7. Matias | February 27th, 2008 at 2:05 am

I think it is different from an auction sale, as if you set the minimum bid too high and no one bids you do lose out on revenue. While in an auction house they just relist the item.

At the end of the day if someone is only willing to bid X amount on a keyword and you want them to bid X+1 then you have lost out as have they as no one bids or gets paid.

On the flipside, I do think it is important to keep the ads from looking spammy and not turn off people from using yahoo search.
8. Yahoo: Minimum Bid May Be&hellip | February 27th, 2008 at 5:06 am

[…] Yahoo Search Marketing Blog Two right moves in 24 hours (first was Open Search announcement). What is going on there? I […]
9. Farhad | February 27th, 2008 at 6:04 am

Too little, too late. Why does Yahoo! take forever to do anything right?
10. Stephanie | February 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am

I agree with several of the above comments: Negatively. I do not use Google much because of this. For instance, on a particular keyword (and related strategy) that is good for me in my business and unknown by others, there is only me and 1 other person in the whole universe that bids on it with Google. Yet, google decided the min. bid would be .20. Now why is that? It is clearly not a highly valued word, and I do work (and site reflects appropriate content) in this area (i.e. quality is there) — I have refused to give them their .20 and have stuck with Yahoo. However, I’m thinking that this revenue generating decision may just give smaller search engines, such as Kanoodle and others, the ammunition (if they are smart enough to recognize it) to get a leg up on the big boy competition.

We’ve all heard about Yahoo slipping in the earnings dept. — I guess this Google immitation, to charge more but provide no added value, is your chosen method of boosting revenue…I wonder what the cost will be?
11. Pay Per Click Journal | February 27th, 2008 at 9:53 am

It seems that as keyword prices grow higher and higher, most businesses will not be able to afford to keep up. PPC will soon diminish if this continues.
12. Clive | February 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

Yahoo! owns the click so they can charge whatever they like for it. On the other hand we can decide how much we are prepared to pay for a click.

If Yahoo! charges too much then the answer is simple: “No Deal!!” Yahoo! can slice it anyway they want we will not pay more than a click is worth TO US not to THEM.

We have the same policy with AdWords - if a key phrase is too expensive, we let it go. There are plenty of other key phrases.

The key is to know how much a key phrase is worth to you.
13. Pay Per Click Advertising&hellip | February 27th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

[…] Reserve Prices - This is VERY big news…”must read”! […]
14. Anuj Naager | February 27th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

This development is something I have feared and been sceptical about ever since I joined Yahoo Search Marketing. It is similar to the Google Slap that turned the keyword bids awry on Adwords. The search marketing on Yahoo was working wondefully for business. But now I fear it will go the same way as my Adwords account where getting a campaign to work has become enormously difficult. I am not sure whether this can be considered an upgrade to the bidding system or is merely a smart marketing strategy intended to raise keyword bids.
While I figure we all have to wait and see the exact effects this beard on our campaings I am, once again, sceptical that it will be favorable in terms of bidding prices.
As a matter of fact, the current system works on these lines anyway. Certain clicks do accrue less than 0.10 per click even if you cannot set them manually to be lower than that. And there are others that will just not show impressions till you raise the bids considereably higher than 0.10. Right now it is being governed by the number of advertisers bidding on those keywords.
But now Yahoo will decide the worthiness of keywords so we can expect the unpopular or, in other words, unique keywords also to have higher bids.
I truly hope that Yahoo does a better job than Google on this issue and does not end up shutting down small budget advertisers.
15. don | February 27th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

Stupidity and greed the downfall of ebay and soon everyone else. With the coming recession
and an overage of choices (supply) the ppc is going to be played to deaf ears. Fair prices and consistancy is the way to win. Google is a whore. They play hardball from the start. Now Yahoo thinks that they are doing what Microsoft would do. Well Microsoft ppc is a disaster. Computer glitches and all. Don’t be a fool,Yahoo, stay with a good thing, but try to make your better not higher priced. You can win
16. Todd | February 27th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

This is exactly why I pulled funds from Google. We will all have to spend more money, for the same results. Yahoo is a business, if they could get us all to spend $5.00 per click they would. We will just have to adapt or take our money elswhere. Good luck, and keep in mind there are other types of marketing besides just pay-per-click.
17. Saskatoon Website Design &hellip | February 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am

[…] this week changed the way it will set minimum bids on some keywords in Sponsored Search ads in the U.S., bringing it closer in line with […]
18. Loren | February 28th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

I am bit dissappointed by this announement and I just received my first email related to this by my manager. If this turns into a clone of Google, why would I continue spending a good chunk of money here and not at google where I can get more reach. I can see this having a big negative effect on their bottomline and by not differentiating themselves from Google, they have condemned themselves to a bad fate. I also do not think it is good policy to hurt small marketers who will not be able to afford the minimum bids for high cost keywords. How can they ever turn into larger marketers?
19. Paul Herrmann | February 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

It is the dishonesty and smoke screen tactics of yahoo that are tearing this once great company apart from the inside out. This is a gasp of breath from a drowning company.
20. Sheryl | February 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Oh Wonderful .. this is the EXACT reason I stopped advertising with Google!!

I hate when the keyword is “inactive for search” because quality is deemed too low or whatever other BS they come up with.

Just list my ad in whatever position it comes up in depending on what others are bidding!

If that puts me in number 106 that’s fine. I can always increase my bid as I see fit.

Just don’t tell me I have to bid $10.00 or $20.00 to activate some ridiculous keywords.

Why doesn’t Yahoo try to be BETTER than Google instead of sinking to their slimy, scum sucking level??
21. Connie | February 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I agree with all the negative response that is being given. All of us have been ripped off by Google, bad enough our own competitors kick us off line by clicking in and out of our websites and using up our daily max. of money per day, I actually have to pay up to $20 per click on my keywords - it is crazy. The same keyword through Yahoo normally cost me half of that - but still too over priced. Soon we will all have to just go back to advertising in regular newspapers and give up being on line. As stated above, the recession of this world is coming and we all need to stick together! Google and Yahoo - have both competed very well in ripping their customers off, having their own affiliates clicking on our websites that aren’t even from the US. When questioned, they deny, although they have people in India, Belgium, Germany, France, etc. all people who can’t speak english click on my website, in and out just charging me to the fullest. I know the rest of you have had this happen as well, you have to have click detective or something to monitor where the clicks are coming from, once done, you will see they are affiliates of our wonderful on-line companies taking our money!
22. Yahoo Search Lowers Minim&hellip | February 28th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

[…] Yahoo is changing the way they set minimum bids on paid search. Over the next few weeks they will set the minimum bid based on quality and value rather than how much you pay. The minimum bids will be set by individual keyword. […]
23. Dave Vincent | February 29th, 2008 at 7:21 am

I dont want to go off on a rant here..but this new development sounds an awful lot like something that rhymes with ‘Bullshit’! Is Yahoo going to choke someone like me,who’s just getting started,completely out of the running?
Its ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ enough that I have to listen to ‘Kenny G’ for an hour when I call tech support!
24. » Yahoo Changes Min&hellip | February 29th, 2008 at 7:42 am

[…] this week changed the way it will set minimum bids on some keywords in Sponsored Search ads in the U.S., bringing it closer in line with […]
25. Lou Miller | February 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am

We ask our customers, How they got to our site. 90% of those that respond say from Google.
Keep up the good work Yahoo,and you want to charge more??
We spend per click an amount we think it is worth, not a penny more.
26. » Yahoo! Search Mar&hellip | February 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

[…] Yahoo! Search Marketing has changed the way it handles minimum bids. Previously, minimum bids were set at .10. Period. Now, they’re based on quality and value. In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢. […]
27. Rumor | February 29th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

If yahoo wants more money per click and higher CTR’s they need to give us - the advertisers more targeting options. For example: I only want to advertise to surfers who have dial up internet connection. Better targeting capacity leads to higher bids by advertisers, better CTR, and better user experience.
I hate adwords for variable minimum bids especially when they jump up and down 5 times a day and some of our best performing keywords became unreachable to anyone. Result less money spent on adwords. Now it could be less money spend on yahoo.
28. Robert Murphy | February 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

I think you are foolish to change. I have heard that many people were going back to Yahoo after being ripprd off at goggle.
Change and so will I.
29. S | February 29th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

How can we set all the keyword to minimum bids. We are sick and tired of rip off from Yahoo
30. Why my Search Marketing C&hellip | February 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

[…] has announced that minimum bids are no longer fixed at $0.10 per click. Following Google’s model, Yahoo’s minimum bids on keywords will fluctuate based on […]
31. WebDiggin | February 29th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

That’s unfortunate. I managed to create a affiliate marketing campaign that finally generated profit ($43.24 of profit after PPC costs last month). It runs on Yahoo, but the exact same ad campaign needs a minimum bid of $12.00 per click to run on Google. I imagine with their new minimum bid policy, it will no longer run on Yahoo as well.

Presumably Yahoo’s recently announced losses forced the company to tighten the belts, reflect on their practices, and innovate. And, likewise, small fish like me will adapt and innovate as well to find the “new cheese.”

I agree with Stephanie. Perhaps it’s time to have a closer look at what second and third tier search engines are doing to fill the niche.
32. tom | February 29th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

I have liked the Yahoo approach for years. Adwords is hard to manage and after trying it briefly, we discontinued it. We had to keep monitoring Adwords price changes and evaluate our strategy constantly. We need consistency in our business. We don’t need our traffic turned off when we’re not looking.

I fear this new Yahoo approach is bad news, because it sounds like Adwords. I liked the model where we bid against each other for position best. However, I understand that Yahoo wants quality ads that get picked. I do to. Please continue to provide help for us to improve quality, so our ads are picked.
33. John Petty | March 1st, 2008 at 3:47 am

My Dad used to say, “WORTH is what someone is willing to pay for it!”.

Synthetic setting of min bids is why I started using Yahoo Mkt to begin with, initially as a supplement to Google, and over time increased my % of Yahoo advetising $$ as I became EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED with starting an ad with Google, only to have the min bid “mysteriously” increased after 2 weeks. UGH!!!

Suggestion: If a min bid is lowered from 0.10 to 0.05, for ads where 4 or less ads are displayed, I might take the time to add more search words, test them out, and INCREASE my spending with Yahoo.

BUT… I don’t like being blindsided with “mystery” increases after 2 weeks of research!

If however, this leads to the same Synthetic Increases that Google does with changing min bids POST START of an ad, why wouldn’t I simply REDUCE my spending with Yahoo and LEVEL MY SPENDING with both entities.

Of course, if both Yahoo and Google keep playing this “trickle up” game, I’ll DROP BOTH!

WORTH is what someone is willing to pay!

It’s tough enough bidding against other advertisers, WHY SHOULD I ALSO BID AGAINST THE “SILENT BIDDERS” YAHOO/GOOGLE???

This is EXACTLY like having the owner of a painting personally bidding during the auction to jack up the price.

Just my thoughts…
34. John Petty | March 1st, 2008 at 4:03 am

“Shill Bidding” — that’s the phrase I was looking for.

Shill Bidding, during an auction, is bidding that artificially increases an item’s price or apparent desirability by the original owner of the product/service.

Yahoo is about to copy Google’s (Shill Bidding) practice by bidding for their own product/service against their own customers.

It’s not a “reserve” when you change the min bid once the auction (or ad) has started. It’s “shill bidding” pure and simple!
35. Barbara G. | March 1st, 2008 at 8:03 am

I am really new at this, but Auctions I know. You have all the control at an auction,just stop bidding when you know the value. This is like a Pig In A Poke its all guess work and lots of research Leave well enough ALONE and continue to grow your product.
36. Steve | March 1st, 2008 at 8:08 am

Minimum bids no longer fixed at $.10 for Sponsored Search.

If the bids are no longer fixed can you place a bid of $.01
37. Yahoo to Follow Go&hellip | March 1st, 2008 at 9:13 am

[…] Yahoo Search Marketing is introducing the reserve pricing in their keyword auction. Although the Panama system already included a quality index, this was for ranking purposes only. Now, similar to Google’s auction, Yahoo can raise minimum bids. A clever way for YSM! to raise some quick cash sorry I meant to “improve the user experience”. […]
38. Stelios | March 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am

I think this is a very clever way for YSM to generate some quick cash! anyway google is doing for ages now! I hope you spend this money on improving your search!
39. Rumor | March 2nd, 2008 at 11:00 am

[quote]If the bids are no longer fixed can you place a bid of $.01[/quote]

lol

Sure you can, and you will see a message like this: “your keyword is inactive please raise the bid to .15 to activate”.
40. kmoore | March 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am

This is EXACTLY why I left Google Ads. Costs WILL GO UP.
41. kmoore | March 3rd, 2008 at 9:02 am

They are going after the Advertisers with DEEP pockets.
42. Mario | March 3rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm

I want to sell e-books cheep, If I have to pay $20 for someone to just see my website. What kind of business is that?

Obviously google and yahoo are not interested in the little guy. Small business drive the economy, we will find a different way to advertise.
43. greg hutchins | March 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 pm

I bagged google. Now, I’ll bag yahoo soon. There are better ways to spend ad monies.
44. Mack Jones | March 4th, 2008 at 3:28 am

It really sucks.
45. Vigilant Advertiser | March 4th, 2008 at 8:44 am

This website is one of the Yahoo partners generating bogus clicks:

http://www.quickbrowsersearch.com

Add this to your Block list. I will post more as they come
46. Tommy | March 4th, 2008 at 9:41 am

I left Google Adwords because of this exact reason.
47. ellen | March 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am

I’m also in agreement with most people that this is not a good thing. I respect that Yahoo is trying to increase the quality of the ads shown and that this is a good way to make more profits off of people pushing irrelevant ads at people and I’m also glad the minimum 10 cents is gone, however, since there is no transparency as to why a minimum bid is what it is, I find it really unfair. The usually cryptic “increase relevancy” type notes that are listed in the engines really don’t help much. All this really seems to do is to pump more money out of advertisers.
48. Sex Ads | March 4th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

This is why I dont use google, seems its off to msn.
49. Recent pay per click shak&hellip | March 5th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

[…] Yahoo removes the .10 minimum bid price. I actually don’t like this change. The .10 minimum kept a lot of the bid bottom feeders off of the Yahoo network, which I predict will now be flooded with zip submit and free Ipod offers. Yahoo has said that the calculation of the bid will be variable based on their quality factors which may help a bit, but the long term effect remains to be seen. Oddly enough, the content network will still have the hard .10 minimum. […]
50. TheAdmiral | March 6th, 2008 at 10:45 am

Not good news. Agree with the MSN thing.
51. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | March 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

[…] and spend an equal amount of time taking a deep dive into their pool of keywords, because with the upcoming change to the way minimum bids are set, it’s a whole new […]
52. Yahoo Panama Removing Fix&hellip | March 11th, 2008 at 3:45 am

[…] Search Marketing Blog announced the Minimum CPC for keywords will no longer be fixed close to the end of February 2008. Starting in […]
53. YSM Removes Min. Bidding &hellip | March 13th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

[…] lower Ad costs? I know i don’t mind at all Below is the YSM’s Official coverage of the change: Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog � Reserve Prices I’m looking forward to working with this for my clients which are currently on the platform […]
54. CPA Marketing Series - Un&hellip | March 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

[…] the recent change in Yahoo making their bid prices no longer at a $0.10 minimum the way of the Yahoo Search Game is currently changing. You need to pay attention to changes. […]
55. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | March 17th, 2008 at 10:15 am

[…] No doubt you’ve heard plenty of times that “It’s not quantity, but quality that counts.” You might have an older relative who also reminds you that “You can’t get blood from a turnip.” (Or is that a stone? I forget.) But even if you’re not fond of clichés, for Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers, quality—your ad quality—is more important than ever, given the upcoming change to the way minimum bids are set. […]
56. john | March 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

see ya yahoo
come on google
57. Undiscovered Napa Valley | March 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

i am a new business and have this funny feeling I will not be able to work with Yahoo. BUMMER
58. sohonyc | March 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

You can try to call this a “reserve” but it’s obviously a price-hike.

Which is yet another reason to abandon Yahoo! for Google.

Hey Yahoo!: Consumer spending is way down. Which means advertising spending is *about* to be way down. Seem like a good time to you guys to raise rates?

Bad move. Very bad move.
59. Jay Morgan | March 19th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

This is total crap. Your not only nailing us to hard now but giving us way more to try and track. This mess is hard enough without youguys turning into the * we could care less about our customers, it’s all about us and our money * people like ebay.

Even with all this negitive feedback, I know you won’t change anything, lther than , like ebay, just making your new hits to our pocket books, ither appear gopod for us, or just to complecated to keep up with.
60. Maggie | March 19th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

This will make my job more difficult. I already spend a fair amount of time looking for and testing keywords that work and are affordable. Now this will take a bigger bite out of my week.
61. Bruce Johnson | March 19th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

This price hike will disqualify many small business owners from showing up on the results page period, and make it easier for the big corporate companies to get an even bigger piece of the pie.

The poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

Thanks, Yahoo!
62. The Business Market | March 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

The analogy Yahoo uses to compare their minimum bid to that of a reserve at an auction house is not valid. An auction house sets a reserve price in case there isn’t enough demand for a product, not to artificially inflate a price. Yahoo is doing exactly the opposite, which in infuriating.

Yahoo is simply using the minimum bid ploy to artificially inflate a price. Otherwise, market economics would disctate the true minimum bid and Yahoo will get paid what they deserve per keyword.

Overall, this is a huge thumbs down from me. As a result, I will be moving my $25,000 monthly PPC budget back to Google.
63. Dave | March 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Are the good people at Yahoo unaware of the economy. I am all for increase in profits, but timing is paramount. I may as well now look to Google. After all, if I am going to pay a higher price I may as well place myself in a higher traffic situation.
64. TERRY | March 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

READ BETWEEN THE LINES……AT YAHOO IT ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, TO HELL WITH WHAT THE CUSTOMER SAYS. IF YOU’LL NOTICE ONLINE, YAHOO IS TRYING TO SELL TO ANYBODY THAT’LL BUY. THEY MUST BE VERY DESPERATE!!
65. justin | March 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Isn’t this the opposite of Google. I believe google inactivates rarer keywords if they dont reach a minimum. What Yahoo is going to do is what they currently do already in other parts of the world such as Yahoo Australia and that is to raise the minimum bids of common keywords. Google will still keep a common keyword with lots of search active at a nickel.
66. Yahoo Sponsored Search ab&hellip | March 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

[…] exclusive content we don’t post on the site. Click here to subscribe. Thanks for visiting!Yahoo recently announced that minimum bids for sponsored search will change from their flat $0.10 fixed price to a variable […]
67. kam | March 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

this mean those of us working with marketingsolutions will have to pay close attention to what we’re doing. I do like the fact that we will be notified and given a grace period in my case all this means is that i will have focus on converting, long tail and high cost keywords because i will not have the time to pay to everything else.
68. Bob Mc Millen | March 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

More greed hits the target smack in the middle. Google ran us away with this tactic!
Keep it up and you’ll go bankrupt before Microsoft bails you out.
69. Wally | March 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer - seems like now only those who can pay $10+ per click get their sites in front of others while those of us starting out on a shoe string budget get swallowed hole. Thanks for the feedback on Google though - I WAS going to try them next. Maybe I should go to banner ads - I dunno. There’s pros and cons no matter which way you go, huh?
70. Ken | March 19th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I LEFT GOOGLE because of this. I likely will return to them when this takes effect since Yahoo no longer will have an advantage over the MUCH LARGER audience that Google provides.

PLEASE RECONSIDER!!
71. Martronics Corporation` | March 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

This new move is STUPID. When you used the old Overture system we spent about $7,000 to
$8,000 per month with you. Then you dropped that and went to your new very time consuming system and our advertising dropped to about $3,000 to $4,000 per month.
We do NOT like this new system so our advertising is going to DROP AGAIN. Wake Up
and let some ADULTS run your company and let the kids go out and play.
72. Mary Zimmerman | March 19th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

Yes, this is the right time to increase prices when we are struggling to stay in business. I am debating whether to cancel Yahoo & Google. It really hasn’t worked for my business but I keep hoping. You may have just given me the push.
73. Rick | March 19th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

I started using Google about a year ago. My key words were about .05 per click. Now it is up to $3.00 a click. Thought I would use Yahoo instead of Google only to find the same thing happening.
Why dont we all put in $50 each and start our own big search engine, let the news media know and everyone will flock to our new search engine run the way customers like us want. Making a profit is good but not at the expense of your clients.
74. Akcent Motor Sales Inc. | March 19th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

I disagree completely.Yahoo is just going the same way as google and the reason I will not use google.I would venture to say that 90% of people using yahoo at the present is because they hate google’s system and now yahoo is just copying them..It allows the major big business’s to control the pricing and pushes out the small business’s. I think yahoo is making a major mistake.. Small business still run’s our economy..I’ll give them a chance to prove otherwise, but if it turns out to be a mirrored image of google I will move on and thats unfortunate as I have been very happy with yahoo for some 10 years.
75. Larry | March 19th, 2008 at 6:10 pm

Greed seems to be getting worse and worse. I quit Google, now I’m going to quit Yahoo. I have better places to spend my advertising dollars. Yahoo and Google aren’t the only sandboxes to play in!
76. Grand Cayman Rentals | March 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

Here’s an idea, let’s all change our bids to $0.00 and see how Yahoo likes it.
77. David | March 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am

I will start using MSFT, this is why I liked yahoo and disliked goog. I think this is a poor decision and I own a lot of stock in yhoo.
78. Chuck | March 20th, 2008 at 8:46 am

I liked Yahoo BEFORE you decided to make more money on those who are trying their best to have affordable advertising on the web. Like Google, you are pricing people out of the advertising market. “Auction Format” is just a nice way to say “we are going to charge you more and justify it” to those who can’t afford a Picasso! Small business owners cannot afford your AUCTION prices!!
79. JB | March 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am

Every there has been a major change at YSM, my cpc has gone up and as a result i have dropped 100’s of ads. I used to spend twice as much with YSM, and now it looks like i will be at a quarter from where i once was.
80. Thomas | March 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am

Bad idea… Yahoo! is making a wrong decision. I am sure that business will drop and you will have to review your new policy very soon.
81. Wanda | March 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am

I’m a new small home-based business, it is hard enough trying to keep afloat in today’s economy. Don’t nickel and dime me out of business.
82. Advertisers beware - Big &hellip | March 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm

[…] on your answers above, the next big announcement from Yahoo! (who is not only hanging on through the talks of being bought by Microsoft, but is taking even more […]
83. Evanne | March 21st, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I recently tried to start using yahoo for an advertising tool. I talked to 5 different techs in 5 days each of whom gave me different information.
Most of my clients are through referrals. But I thought I would give this a try. I may be new at this and do not know alot about it, but it does seem to me that you have to pay a very high price to get your site to show up on the first three pages- and who looks beyond that?? I even tried wording my exactly like one of the top listed ads, but as I was not paying $14 a bid, nothing happened.
At one point I thought I would do just that, and just run it on the weekends, but I decided not to-even when I did get clicks, they did not translate into new clients actually contacting me.
I use a lot of other sites like SF Backpage, on which for a very slight fee, my ad will show up, in bold, highlighted, and on the top of the page-without all this complicated “keyword value” or anything else. If I was you, I would look into local online ads-they are inexpensive(or free) and they place you at the top-and, lo and behold-you get new clients!!
84. seo expert blog | March 26th, 2008 at 3:22 am

well it seem like yahoo trying to copy google, but to me the only adventage in using yahoo was this now as they are doing exactly what google is doing then there is no cometition between two marketing leader, it seem yahoo is running out of ideas and start using google ideas … best of luck to online marketers
85. Joseph Pope | March 26th, 2008 at 7:54 am

I have put my Pope Store site on hold for the present because of minimal traffic. From
all of the comments on your changes, I could not afford to advertise my site with Yahoo. It liooks like you should go back to the original system or loose quite a number of your followers.
86. David Larsen | March 31st, 2008 at 8:29 pm

This new manipultation of price just shows that Yahoo has become a Monopoly and is acting like the Internet Mafia. Where is the Federal Trade Commision are they looking at what you are doing? Yahoo is not selling fine art and is not an auction house. Yahoo is an advetisement media selling keywords for what had been a fair and open market of bidding on key words by the customers. Yahoo is selling time in a space as far as Ads are concerned and the space expires every second, minute, hour and day. If we choose not to bid the key words because you are setting and manipulating bids instead of allowing the open market you can never recover the lost revenues or customery loyalty. The value of Yahoo will be gone and we are nolonger at odds with our competitiors but with what will become a Yahoo Mafia. Why fix what is not broken, so some VP can make a bigger bonus? This is just short term profits for long term losses. If your customers can no longer trust Yahoo then why give you a credit balance to prepay our ads. We trust you with our funds and that your click and cost reports are honest, now that you are showing your greed I nolonger can trust you. There are ARESA Laws to deal with this and you are putting yourself at risk to Federal Intervention. I have 32 URLs I advertise with you and you say you have a consortuim of Partners that are charging us for our keywords on there sites yet you can not even provide us with a list of the sites we are supposed to be displaying online ads on for advertisment. Yahoo is earning billions yet has forgot to comunicate with its clients and fails to provide us with the information we need to sell our clients on your services.
I know what fraud looks like and it always starts with greed. As for me I will move my sites to Google which I should have done a long time ago based on my URL refferal reports compared with my Yahoo billings. I smell a rat and its not Mickey. You will not like what I have to say and I wish you would reconsider your actions.

Kindest regards,

DWL
HMS Hotels
87. Steve Krajewski | April 1st, 2008 at 9:10 am

Maybe you need to hire some older people with previous business experience who know that this decision will only drive people to other alternatives. don’t the people in your organization know that this is exactly what drove us former google advertisers to yahoo? Like others I came to yahoo because you offered an affordable alternative for a small business situation. Now you will be expensive and I don’t have the time to constantly upgrade my search marketing knowledge base. You need to find ways to make campaigning simpler, not more complex. Maybe you should hire some people who have actually used your service to manage it. I’ll give it a couple weeks, but will be researching the next greener pasture in order to survive in the meantime. Sorry you chose to cater to the big guys. It was a good deal up to this point.

Best regards,
Steve
88. Jeff Smith | April 5th, 2008 at 8:13 am

Advertising on yahoo is becoming more and more expensive while less and less effective. I’ve just lowered my yahoo budget and am investigating different ways to advertise my website. I don’t think it will be long before I abandon paid advertising on Yahoo completly.
89. Yahoo refining search-ad &hellip | April 11th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

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91. Yahoo! Scraps Minimum Bid&hellip | April 14th, 2008 at 3:08 am

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92. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | April 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm

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93. Yahoo is Changing Minimum&hellip | April 18th, 2008 at 8:42 am

[…] Sponsored search ads at yahoo was fixed before to .10c today they changed it by value and quality of keywords. In other words its like an Auction […]
94. Dave | April 19th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

2000% ++++ increase in my keyword per click cost. From 10 cents to some as high as $2.50 . Is Yahoo management out of their minds ! We have starting removing the majority of keywords from our account, so we can spend are money on other sites that make us more money. Has Yahoo forgot the idea is that your customers have to make money by using their service or they go some where else with their money. The bottomline is a business must made that evil thing profit ! Our account will be closed as soon as our account balance hit ZERO. Then Yahoo will get ZERO, instead of something. Bottomline the changes are a STUPID idea on Yahoo’s part. PS We did same thing to Google a few months ago when they also got out of hand with their keyword costs.
95. Lindsay Doyle | April 22nd, 2008 at 10:27 pm

How many times does Yahoo have to change things? Incredibly disfunctional once again.
96. mark | April 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

It’s very frustrating how search engines now expect us to pay more than the old minimum just because the keywords aren’t as competitive.
97. mark | April 30th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

Going back to google won’t help as they’ve implemented a similar idea.
98. Judith Kazem | April 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

There have been so many changes lately, it is very difficult to keep up with them, especially for small companies such as ours.