Minimum Bids No Longer Fixed at $.10

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• 1. Yahoo Raises Minimum Ad B&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am

  [...] posted an announcement yesterday that they have removed the minimum bids on keyword advertising. The company stated that bids could [...]

• 2. FoodFeed - What Your Frie&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 5:58 am

  [...] posted an announcement yesterday that they have removed the minimum bids on keyword advertising. The company stated that bids could [...]

• 3. Mike  |  April 18th, 2008 at 6:12 am

  You guy’s are going to loose me as a customer with all these changes!

  M

• 4. Yahoo Tweaks Its (Adverti&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am

  [...] Yahoo just raise its prices for search ads? Yesterday, Yahoo made a significant change to its advertising bidding system by removing the minimum bid for sponsored search keywords. The [...]

• 5. Yahoo Changes Advertising&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 9:47 am

  [...] – On Yahoo’s search marketing blog yesterday, the company announced that it was changing minimum bids for some sponsored search [...]

• 6. Google’s Numbers: C&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 10:40 am

  [...] interesting, it appears that Yahoo has now implemented more restrictive ad pricing requirements – on a dynamic basis (just like Google). A reaction to Google’s earnings and Efficient [...]

• 7. Whit  |  April 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am

  Unbelievable strategy blunder! Yahoo Search is now the same as Ask.com. Users arent going to raise their bids. Instead users will rely more on Microsoft and Google. Send me an email if they figure out their mistake before they disappear from the market.

• 8. Jack  |  April 18th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

  Trying to increase revenue for a Microsoft buyout?

  From what I’ve seen on my account today, this will simply price some keywords out of my marketplace. Raising a keyword from 0.10 to 0.47 makes it unprofitable for me to use it. Plus, I don’t have any idea what you are charging my competitors so it smacks of a non-level playing field.

  Although I expect it to increase Yahoo revenue in the short term, many of us will be putting more attention on Google. If I’ve got to pay Google rates, I’d just as soon be dealing with only one provider, and it’ll be the one that brings me 80% of my traffic.

  Has anyone seen minimum bids FALL below the 0.10 level?

  Hope Yahoo gets it back together again.

• 9. Bill  |  April 18th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

  This doesn’t sound good for our company. We are still struggling with the changes Yahoo made Feb. 2007. Our average price per click went from .17 to .30 overnight, for the same number of orders. It has almost put us out of business, and I am affraid that this might be the nail in the coffin. Our revenue rose from 2.7 million in 2006 to 4.7 million in sales for 2007 , however, our net profit fell in 2007, due to the more than double increase in our cost per click. Yahoo took all of our additional profit.

• 10. Bill Davey  |  April 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

  WE’ll try it and see if the cost gets out of hand

• 11. Clive  |  April 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

  I have not seen any minimums under .10 and when I tried to delete those over that amount the system could not do it. My message to Yahoo is this. You will not be able to get me to pay more for a click than I think it is worth. If managing my account becomes a pain I will go elsewhere.

• 12. Yahoo ad bid changes go l&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

  [...] company announced Thursday on its Yahoo Search Marketing blog that the gradual change has begun. Yahoo said the move is designed to improve ad relevance while [...]

• 13. Yahoo ad bid changes go l&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 5:40 pm

  [...] for keyword-based ads that appear alongside search results. The company announced Thursday on its Yahoo Search Marketing blog that the gradual change has begun. Yahoo said the move is designed to improve ad relevance while [...]

• 14. News.com general » &hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

  [...] company announced Thursday on its Yahoo Search Marketing blog that the gradual change has begun. Yahoo said the move is designed to improve ad relevance while [...]

• 15. Just like Google... SCREWED!  |  April 18th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

  Minimums will go WAY too high on many keywords for many advertisers making it unprofitable to advertise. Just like the “Google slap” some keyword minimums will liekly be $1.00, or $5.00, etc. When one is used to paying $0.20 and needing 100 clicks to make a $30 sale (thus spending $20 to make $10 profit) it will price them right out of the market!

• 16. Martin  |  April 18th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

  I am seeing very little productivity from yahoo.com. On google my conversion rate runs 30-35% on click through volume. Not google.

• 17. Jim  |  April 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

  Bad decision on Yahoo’s part adopting the same crap Google is using… the very reason I stopped advertising on Google. Someone mentioned an unbearable jump from .1 to .5. Haha… I had ads perfectly matched to keywords to merch on my site. On Google it was a CONSTANT battle with words being disabled just because people were not clicking on the ad enough = lack of quality. Oh I could reenable the ads if I met a new minimum bid which usually fell on $1, $5 or $10!! And Google wonders why click ad revenue has declined. I don’t spend a lot but I will eventually pull ALL my business from Yahoo if this is the same as Google. What they are really doing is punishing the advertisers for a slow economy and poor ad revenue from click through. So you pay a LOT more for the few clicks you might get vs. all the impressions you get. I have used Yahoo’s current method on and off for years and it works just fine.

• 18. Russ  |  April 18th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

  Is this April first again or have you guys gone insane?

  Didn’t you hear we are in a recession and every dollar means something to a small business and our families?

  Great timing as long as you only care about your family and not the ones who help feed them.

  You’re biting off the hand that help you grow from 1 cents a click to a multi billion dollar company. I have been with you since your beginnings and have watched all the changes take place over the years, and I have to say the way you have implemented this, outlined it on the website, and lack of communication on this change makes me wonder what you’ve been smoking. Just when a get a loyal following, you screw up BIG TIME.

  You say you will allow us a few days to change our bids, yet with 10’s of thousands of keywords, and on vaction for a week, how the hell am I suppose to get this completed in a few days? I used to recommend Yahoo Advertising to anyone who wanted to know how to make money online, but I can assure you, I will be spending my advertising dollars elsewhere and nevr utter your sites name again.

  I am truly baffled why you would put a minimum on some of the terms you have chosen in my account, but more so, how you have executed this new system without fair warning or time to make approriate changes.

  So much for letting the small companies compete with the big boys. You have taken away the opportunity many of us needed to build a small business online.

  Now is the time for a new rival to come kick your ass. Shall we pray???

• 19. Yahoo Search Marketing is&hellip  |  April 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

  [...] it could be higher or lower for each specific keyword depending on two major factors according to Yahoo’s Blog and I Quote… Quality—High quality generally means that your ads are being clicked more [...]

• 20. » Yahoo Implements &hellip  |  April 19th, 2008 at 1:02 am

  [...] announced that minimum bids for Sponsored Search will no longer be fixed at $.10. And yesterday, they announced that the change has taken [...]

• 21.   Yahoo Slap: Yahoo &hellip  |  April 19th, 2008 at 5:29 am

  [...] through some of the comments on the Yahoo blog post, I can see that this move is not popular with advertisers. The truth is that many advertisers will [...]

• 22. ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTI&hellip  |  April 19th, 2008 at 7:00 am

  [...] Yahoo made a significant change to its advertising bidding system by removing the minimum bid for sponsored search keywords. The [...]

• 23. Dave  |  April 19th, 2008 at 9:54 am

  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.

• 24. Eva  |  April 19th, 2008 at 11:31 am

  At this rate, the little folks like me may have to close up shop all together or move to a more profitable search engine. I have only used Yahoo but may have to consider someone else. I stayed here because of the pricing, now it doesn’t make any difference.

• 25. Jon  |  April 19th, 2008 at 7:03 pm

  although this price increase will be a temporary inconvieniance, I would bet that pricing will soon fall to realistic levels. As many people noted, paying 50 cents per click when it take you 15 clicks to sell a $20 product is unrealistic, so people selling $20 products will leave their bid at 10 cents even though their bid remains inactive. eventually yahoo will realize that that keyword is not worth 50cent and will take 10 cents a click and get clicks rather than 50 cents a click and no clicks. The market will sort all this out. people will only pay for something if it makes their business profitable.

• 26. Roei Zerahia  |  April 20th, 2008 at 2:07 am

  As i see it now, the times goes by and Yahoo’s platform is becoming identical to Google’s – which is very good on my opinion.

• 27. SEO Tuts » Blog Arc&hellip  |  April 20th, 2008 at 5:46 am

  [...] announced that minimum bids for Sponsored Search will no longer be fixed at $.10. And yesterday, they announced that the change has taken [...]

• 28. SEO Tuts » Blog Arc&hellip  |  April 20th, 2008 at 5:47 am

  [...] announced that minimum bids for Sponsored Search will no longer be fixed at $.10. And yesterday, they announced that the change has taken [...]

• 29. Wendy  |  April 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am

  Wow…this is bad business if you ask me.
  I think the answer is for all of us to take our business elsewhere.
  I am only familiar with Google and Yahoo, where are some other good places I can advertise? It just feels like us small businesses will get kicked out of the game by the big companies that can afford this ridiculous pricing. It is very unfair. This is where we need better competition for companies such as Yahoo.

• 30. mike  |  April 20th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  This is hilarious – Yahoo trying to go to a google like “screw the small advertiser” system. It will fail. Yahoo has no percentage of large advertisers to speak of, in fact, I believe MSN even beats them. Google got away with this game only because google courted large advertisers – and that’s the revenue that put them where they are. Yahoo is the opposite – smaller revenue advertisers.

  In addition, they’re in the fight of their lives w/a takeover in the works…what an ignorant time to make this kind of total change to a business model…but, we’ve come to expect this from this company.

  Hey – what would you expect from a company that has the “latest shopping technology” such as product submit?!

  They had a chance to remain under current circumstances – but with this change will come a huge drop in revenue, which will make a take over much easier to sell to the board and membership.

  Way to go Yahoo – I wonder what the new company name will be?

• 31. steve  |  April 20th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

  Just had to chime in on this one. Yahoo, are you listening??? What is the point of a auction if you’re going to set the price? With the latest messages, some of my client’s keywords are going to over a $1 per click. These same keywords have been performing fine for us at .75 – .85 for months now.

  I agree with the other comments — this is a dumb move and will come back to bite you in the wallet. If you’re going to dictate the min bid, and force me to spend even more time managing the campaigns, it simply won’t be cost effective for me, and I’ll stop buying Yahoo ads altogether for me and all my clients!

  Perhaps we as advertisers should all band together and pick a day to simply turn off all our ads on Yahoo as a demonstration that WE are the CUSTOMERS and you, Yahoo, should be doing all you can to make it profitable for us to stay on your ad platform. Or maybe you’ll just leave it to Microsoft to figure out how to get all the customers back.

• 32. equally » Yahoo ad &hellip  |  April 20th, 2008 at 10:02 pm

  [...] company announced Thursday on its Yahoo Search Marketing blog that the gradual change has begun. Yahoo said the move is designed to improve ad relevance while [...]

• 33. Phil  |  April 21st, 2008 at 6:29 am

  Its time to switch to Google Adwords.

• 34. Markus  |  April 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 am

  Bad move. You artificially inflated our prices with no rhyme or reason to it. I can’t think of any other motivation to do this other than squeeze us for more money.

  I’m getting closer and closer to just sticking with Adwords. At least they have the volume to justify these headaches.

• 35. Russ  |  April 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm

  Absolutely Crazy move. This will never bring you more $ in the long run. I had a keyword go from $1.00 to $6.43 minimum bid yesterday.

  I drop 200-300K per year with YSM.

  Sorry to say, but the best piece of advice I have is to copy Google. Their system is Ideal and everyone knows it.

• 36. Yahoo ad bid changes go l&hellip  |  April 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm

  [...] company announced Thursday on its Yahoo Search Marketing blog that the gradual change has begun. Yahoo said the move is designed to improve ad relevance while [...]

• 37. Dan  |  April 22nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm

  What a rip off. Many of my bids are now increased so much that I can’t afford them anymore. I thought Google was bad when they raised some of their min. bids, but Yahoo once again shows they don’t understand their customers with outrages demands. You are forcing us away!

• 38. Peter  |  April 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 am

  I will not be raising my bids to match the ridiculous increases in per-click minimums. If that means I get no impressions so be it–I am not only saving money but Yahoo will also lose my business.

  What was a reasonably simple

• 39. Peter  |  April 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am

  [Ooops.]

  Anyway, what was a reasonable system with Overture (in spite of some shortcomings) became an advert-management headache as YSM. And that headache has now become an expensive nightmare. Actually it has become an expensive nightmare that does not produce satisfying results.

  You should consider renaming yourselves from YSM to YDIAH, for “Y Do I Advertise Here?”.

• 40. Minimum Bids Fluidised On&hellip  |  April 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 am

  [...] Search Marketing has changed the rules of their game again. Until last week the minimum bid for sponsored search keywords was a [...]

• 41. Slim Shot  |  April 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am

  This is great news – I always liked that Google did not have a set minimum bid and that it was based on the quality score.

  I think Yahoo removing the minimum bid requirement is a positive step forward for advertisers.

  Thanks Yahoo!

• 42. Jase  |  April 23rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm

  I’m cancelling my search marketing, web hosting and even done with promoting you as an affilite and hope everyone else involved with you has the brains to do the same. I like the Google model but your prices are sick. Your explanations of quality and value in relation to minimum bids are total BS, I had ads with perfect quality scores and keywords with CTR of almost 10% that you raised minimum bid over 1000%.

• 43. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip  |  April 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am

  [...] certainly holds true when it comes to our recent change to the way minimum bids are determined. It really boils down to How will I know if my minimum bids are changing? and Knowing that [...]

• 44. Bhaskar  |  April 26th, 2008 at 2:14 am

  Very informative as i m going through how it works and the criteria to determine minimum bids etc

  Thanks

• 45. How Low Can You Go? | Loc&hellip  |  April 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am

  [...] lost amidst the noise of the Microsoft/Yahoo! posturing over the last couple of weeks was a rather dramatic announcement by Yahoo! that they were changing how their minimum bid system worked. What struck me about this wasn’t [...]

• 46. BILL  |  April 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

  AS A SMALL COMPANY WE HAVE USED THIS AS A WAY OF KEEPING OUR NAME BEFORE THE PUBLIC.
  THE NUMBER OF CLICKS WE GET NOW IS NOT VERY SATISFYING AND IF THE PRICE IS SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER FOR THE SAME NUMBER OF CLICKS WE WILL LEAVE. SINCE YOU HAVE STARTED MAKING CHANGES WE HAVE GRADUALLY HAD FEWER CLICKS.

• 47. Meaghen  |  April 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

  You just killed my business. Thank you. I hope you sleep well at night, knowing several small business can no longer afford your advertising. Your prices were the reason we chose you. Big mistake Yahoo. I am now closing my account and looking for something else.

• 48. Jim Delane  |  April 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

  I have 25 separate accounts for different businesses and cities. Everyone has been flagged for keyword deactivation. There are literally thousands of keyword affected. Yohoo has conveniently created a function to raise all to their minimum bid. Their response to my question about overpaying was that I could control my costs by the daily spending limits. So, basically, they sidestepped the issue that I will get a lot less traffic for my money. I will be letting a lot of my keywords stay deactivated for 2 reasons. One, I do not have the time to go in and make all these changes immediately. Second, I have alternative places to spend my money.
  I do have the luxury of letting the keywords be deactivated and watch to see just how much it affects the business. It will likely be minimal and I may opt to just not participate in this game. Yahoo’s loss – not mine.

• 49. Gil Paquette  |  April 30th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

  I’m tired of trying to keep up with the constant changes on Yahoo, I have better things to do than to take valuable time learning “YOUR” new changes. If it wasn’t broke, why did it need fixing? I think I’ll phase yahoo out for Google.

• 50. randy  |  April 30th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

  We can not keep in business with all of these increases.

• 51. The Unit  |  April 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

  Quality ads do make a difference though in keeping the price per click down.

• 52. art  |  April 30th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

  If the minimum bid prices changes, you’d better email me about it. I don’t visit the account interface any more than I have to. If you don’t email me, you won’t be collecting income from me.

• 53. Ramli  |  April 30th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

  I was about to consider using you services vs Google. Now I notice this news. This being the case, most probably I won’t be trying at all…why waste my time here..

• 54. David  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm

  Did anybody actually see the minimum bid on their keywords drop lower than $.10? I didn’t notice any of my low volume keywords drop below $.10 per click.

• 55. Ken  |  May 5th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

  Hello,
  Im new to pay per click advertising and dont know how things used to be or how they ought to be so what your reading here in my comment is just me without prejudice or predetermined opinions talking about my current situation.
  Being new at anything is diificult at first, we’ve all had a first day on the job at some time in our life.
  As a small business trying to get started and doing my best to make ends meet cost in everything I do is very important to me. If advertising is too high for me as a newcomer and Im unable to particpate in PPC where will PPC’s new business come from in the future?
  I believe in the future of small business because it has always been and will always be, with or without the big businesses working along side them.
  I am a very determined individual who will not give up on my dreams and somehow I will find a way to overcome the high costs of doing business in the world today. My first big lesson was learning to see my mistakes, admitting them and moving on. Im satisfied that Yahoo and Google learned that along time ago.
  Good luck to all of you including Yahoo and google.

• 56. Jeremy  |  May 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am

  Yahoo, what on earth are you thinking?

  If you want to HAVE a company in the future, you better start treating your bread n’ butter advertisers a lot better that this.

  This new move is pathetic! I am already starting to see the hit and it won’t be long before you lose all of my business altogether.

• 57. Jeremy  |  May 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am

  My goodness, Yahoo! There is Google or Yahoo. Yahoo had an edge with their bidding structure, so I used them instead. Now they have copied Google. So WHAT IS THE POINT IN STAYING WITH YAHOO? HellllOOOoooo!

• 58. Cat  |  May 20th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

  I was actually considering switching to Yahoo and ending our Google Adwords account because of all the trouble we’ve had with them. Google hasn’t been cost effective and their billing department is terrible. They’re also way overpriced and if you want to stay competitive you have to raise your maximum cost per click to a price that’s unaffordable. They also are very difficult when it comes to getting refunds due to click fraud. I’d avoid Google.

• 59. YSM Minimum Bids No Longe&hellip  |  June 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 am

  [...] To read the complete article click here. [...]

• 60. » update market new&hellip  |  June 30th, 2008 at 12:25 am

  [...] Yahoo raises prices. Minimum Bids for Search No Longer Fixed at $.10 [...]

• 61. Jim  |  January 25th, 2009 at 6:27 pm

  Just thought I would add a follow up… Interestingly enough the majority of my business now comes from Google (non-paid search or google shopping)now and I don’t pay them a dime. I have also taken note of the sham Yahoo marketing is running. I have some specific keywords no one is bidding on anymore and I am the only ad yet my minimum bid for many keywords remains far above what should be a .1 minimum. Also interesting is the fact Yahoo has failed to offer so much as a comment on the subject… I guess the only word we will get is when Yahoo get bought out or goes belly up.

• 62. Shanon  |  April 14th, 2009 at 2:14 am

  Does today you minimum bids for its search result stills can bids lower than 0.1

  Thanks

• 63. HARVEY ANDERSON  |  March 12th, 2010 at 10:03 pm

  I try 2 creat a CREAT AD on facebook in the got this Message on the bottom about my account . but i never created a ad untill now. i like 2 know wie facebook continual 2 FUNK WITH PEOPLES ACCOUNT LIKE THEY DO ITS BULLSHIT..>>>>>>>

  Your account has been disabled. All of your ads have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its ads violate our Terms of Use or Advertising Guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising Guidelines if you have further questions

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