inbound - 4:45 pm on Oct 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

partners of partners of search partners...

Correct, that's the problem that I was trying to get over.

As for Yahoo employees looking over every site (or more often than not, network of sites operated by the applying entity), it just does not happen. It certainly does on the direct partners of Yahoo, it probably does on the initial sites for partners of partners (remembering that new sites can appear at any time), but beyond that is pushing it.

A specific example of this is we launched a new site just yesterday (our first new site for around a year), it already carries YSM adverts (which will only make up 5% of earnings from the site - and there isn't any traffic to talk about at the moment) and I'm certain that Yahoo have not manually reviewed it. There is no problem with this new site as we are completely above board but once you are accepted (and hence trusted) there may be temptations for some to turn to the dark side.

The main problem may not be from hard-up publishers turning rouge; it's more likely to come from wolves in sheep's clothing. People appearing legit with a site or two initially, then adding their other sites later.

Even worse is the temptation to create pseudo ppc networks which then go on to get traffic from anywhere (think paid to browse), have you ever wondered how such dodgy places show adverts that come from much bigger networks?

If every level gets just a little bit dodgier, it doesn't take long for fraud to kick in.