Problems with Overture Japan

All of my listings have been declined.

[eboli]

Hi,

I have triying put on line a campaing in Overture, exactly in Japan Marketplace.
At the begining they tell my, than my site must be all in japanish, so I translate my web to japanish. But, After check my KW, description... My campaing is being declined one and thousand times, again and again. And I not sure what can I do for have my campaing on line.

Can someone give an advise about this?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[bill]

I would write to Overture Support and ask them if there's a problem. They are pretty good about getting back to you reasonably quickly from my past experience with them. You can even write to them in English. I believe that most of the Japan team is still working out of California (USA).

[wattsnew]

hi eboli, bill,

Getting Overture to accept anything is an accomplishment in my experience....

I've been working up Japanese pages and customer service for my business in partnership with Japanese speakers. I saw no reason not to place this presentation and in a domain.com/jp/ directory under my main (English) domain.

Comments from eboli seem to suggest that this will not be acceptable to Overture...what about Google adwords and search? Will it get spidered?

Thoughts appreciated.

[bill]

It really shouldn't matter where your content is located for Overture. You're paying them to place links in their SERPs. They do have listing guidelines though, so you need to follow them. Generally if you can write an acceptable page title and description in English, then it's not too much of a stretch to do the same in Japanese.

Comments from eboli seem to suggest that this will not be acceptable to Overture...what about Google adwords and search? Will it get spidered?

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. eboli didn't mention anything about file location...maybe you could clarify yourself here. Overture and AdWords are pay-per-click advertising services. Getting spidered by Google is an entirely different issue. Google's free results have nothing to do with whether you purchase AdWords.

[eboli]

Hi everybody,

My problem is just with overture, beacuse I donīt have any problem with my Japan campaing in google adwords.

One thing to consider about overture and my experiencie: I had send one campaing with more or less, 30 KW, and the correspondesce description bla, bla.

After try several times (changing titles, dscription...) they put on line just one keyword (with the same url than the rest of the keywords, when the reason for declined the rest of the KW was: URL no valid, because you have some content in english).

Ok, then I made a new site (all in Japanese), and then they declined my campaing again. So I am desperate.

I have campaings with overture in all the marketplace than they offer, and I had my problems, but such than now...

My site is .org, is located in USA. And buy a new domain with co.jp, I think is excessive, isnīt is?

[wattsnew]

eboli said

my site must be all in japanish

which made me wonder if some English site content (files or pages) on the site were unacceptable. However, his translated site isn't acceptable either!

Overture's JP listing guidelines certainly use the word "site" rather than Web page when qualifying KW ads:

title and description must accurately describe why the Web site qualifies for the search term.

Foreign Sites

Sites must have Japanese-language titles, descriptions, and site content to be accepted into the Overture Japan marketplace.......Japanese language sites based outside of Japan that offer products and services geared to a non-Japanese audience may only bid on their name and search terms modified by their location.

So it implies, literally, that the "site" must be in Japanese....I wonder what the reality is (I cannot speak Japanese or I'd go and look for the URLs of a few Overture listings on Yahoo.co.jp or somewhere.)

Bill, do you know if Google and google.co.jp will have any problem spidering / indexing a mixed language site? Of course it is .com, not co.jp. Our product margin can't justify much PPC advertising at today's prices anyway....

Cheers

[bill]

Generally I recommend that you get a .jp domain for your Japanese site. It implies that you're taking the Japan market seriously, and it will help a bit with some of the local SEs. That said though, it is completely possible for you to run a site as a subdirectory or sub-domain of your main .com or .org or other domain site and get listings in Overture.

Like the Overture guidelines indicate your site must be in Japanese. This means you'll want to interlink all of your Japanese content pages and not have a lot of links to other language content. Make it look like a site regardless of where you put it in your server.

Ok, then I made a new site (all in Japanese), and then they declined my campaing again. So I am desperate.

So, what reasons are they giving you now about your listings being refused? They'll generally tell you why your listings were refused and work with you.

Bill, do you know if Google and google.co.jp will have any problem spidering / indexing a mixed language site?

They will have no problem whatsoever doing the spidering. I had an English site living in a subdirectory of a .co.jp site for quite some time and it produced very good rankings in Google.

[wattsnew]

Thank you very much for your experience on this, Bill.

Eboli, I've found Overture (US) very very picky to deal with, but they have always given me a reason for declining an ad. Many ads. I agree with the idea of communicating with them until you have an answer. You have certainly tried to follow their direction, however there could be a misunderstanding on either side of the issue. I'll be interested to hear what you learn as well.

[globalseo]

Eboli,

If you can get through to customer service they will tell you why it is rejected. Overture Japan is very strict with what can and cannot be advertised. They have helped us with what needed to be changed/said in order to make it leagal in some cases.

If you have anything related to health you are in for an uphill battle since that is a highly regulated area in Japan.

We get a number of requests to place people in Google and Overture Japan with anything you can think of and unless it is targeting Japanese, and within Japan's strict import laws they will reject it. You need to meet the TOS for Japanese content, descriptions and "intent" of the offer to Japanese -- are all caregully reviewed.

To be fair, it is Overture that will get in trouble with local authorites, not you, for allowing ads to be placed on their network for questionable products or those which violate local laws.

I have had many, many conversations with the paid placement companies around the world and it all boils down to local laws. It is frustrating to be able to run something in the US or Germany and not be allowed in Japan or Italy because of local laws.