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First you say there is a bug and then you say that we earned what we were supposed to.
How do you feel about boys and girls?
Can I ask, if advertisers were charged less, what exactly does that mean for the future? Is this some kind of "smart" pricing structure like adsense has?
Ladies and Gentlemen, Smart-Pricing (Yahoo Style) is here.
Algo changes
The glitch is fixed
Revenue is still low bottom
My earnings appear to be relatively on target this morning so far.
To be frank, I'm much less concerned about a couple of bad days (assuming it doesn't become a trend of course), and a LOT more concerened with the relevance and ad targetting.
If you're dealing with a large number of domains, and a large number of pages getting traffifc, it is more or less impossible to get your ads targetted.
This is the real problem for YPN right now, as far as I'm concerned, and anything else is really a secondary consideration.
I don't care so terribly much about loosing clicks for a weekend (although I don't like it, obviously).
I'm loosing 200-300% of my clicks per day because the ads YPN is relying to much on publisher to handle the ad targetting. Again - It's just impossible when dealing with a large volume.
I would say that if there isn't any "ghost" revenue floating around between the overture bidders and us publishers, it's really self defeating to get so worked up about this, so long as the ads are so off target.
I don't mean to start any kind of argument.
I'm just a publisher too. I wantthe best thing for myself, and for the rest of us, and I really believe that if we're really going to start pushing, we need to push for YPN to:
1. Handle the ad targetting on their end more, and not on publishers having to deal with on page SEO to an insane extreme, keyword stuffing to get targetted ads, etc.
2. Get the ads to be relevant QUICKLY when a new page is published or they're put on a new page for the first time. I don't even need it to understand my sites as fast as Adsense does, which is almost instantly. If it would happen in 3-6 hours, I would be EXTREMELY happy. Putting up completely irrelevant ads about jewelery auctions, mortages, and voip phones creates INTENSE ad blindness. This is bad for YPN and us as publishers.
3. Handle the Geo-targetting themselves. Honestly - I'm still a big Yahoo and YPN fan. I do find it awfully ridiculous that people are being kicked out of the beta for international traffic, when Y! could easily do ip delivery for their ads. IMHO this is not the publishers responsibility. At all.
So I agree that it's bad if we lost alot of revenue this weekend. If the advertisers were charged less, and it's not any kind of indication of future smart pricing type of schemes - Honestly Y! . . . I can let that slide. 2 days revenue is to much to loose, but not enough to make me leave if it was a legitimate issue.
But these three issues above - I think that's what is really important for us as publishers to be focusing on, and collaborating with YPN, and even pressing them to get this stuff working better.
Two days is NOTHING compared to what publishers are loosing due to crap ads.
CPM about half of normal ... albeit still better than adsense :) Plus you guys send me the most organic traffic .. kisses :)
Of course, that's pretty silly, as targetted ads would pay more overall, via more clicks if they were truly targetted correctly.
This is definately not an issue of targetted vs. RON ads.
I have sites that have had YPN on them for almost 4 months now. They've never been taken off. They're on pages that even with few advertisers Adsense could EASILY target. But still RON ads.
It's not that there aren't enough advertisers, either I don't think. YPN just doesn't know how to understand what a page is about. When the main keyword is in the document title, H1 tags, and all throughout the page - there should be targetted ads.
I am happy with the amount of money that I'm making with YPN. It's about the same, or a little bit more than I would make with Adsense. But I really think I should be making more.
And I'm not just motivated by my own selfish interest in saying this.
YPN - what do you think the effect is going to be of running totally and obviously irrelevant ads for half a year on our end web users?
Only one thing. Ad blindness.
This is going to hurt YPN's revenue in the long run, and publishers credibility in both the short and long term.
If I were sitting in your board room, in a strategy meeting, I would walk right up to the whiteboard, load up my power point presentation - or whatever, and tell you this.
You need to use the same strategy you initially used with publishers (i.e. more money) to get better engineeers and developers on board.
Do you realize that Clicksor serves better and more relevant ads than YPN? That should be horrifying to anyone at Yahoo. It's true.
I really appreciate Sarah being here, and I feel kind of bad that you're personally getting beat up on in this thread, or things are aimed at you.
OvertureRep/YahooSarah is probably as frustrated by this as we are. Has anyone ever done tech support in the past? Have you had to spin a complete line of BS to frustrated users when you know it's just a radius server that's down? I can definately sympathize.
My suggestion is that Sarah, and anyone else from Y!/YPN who might read this forum go into their next meeting and just lay it on the line to the folks in charge.
They need to up the ante. And fast. Yahoo needs to hire more and better talent. Go to industry headhunters. They'll have inside numbers for people at Adsense and other PPC programs. Make them an offer they can't refuse.
The fact that there are a million international publishers waiting to join should NOT be any comfort to you.
If you create a situation where the ads are always irrelevant and creates banner blindness, it won't matter. You'll ruin your PPC efforts before they get started, and hurt the rest of the industry too.
I for one appreciate the good will of having someone here to talk to us, and I don't want to take out any of my frustrations on OR/YS or anyone else who is a liason between publishers and Yahoo, and I hope other people won't either.
But it's time to be really frank. YPN has not made any significant improvements during this beta period. Revenue may be up from allowing more publishers in, but the actual nuts and bolts is exactly the same as it was late last year.
Terrible ads. No additional payment options. Forcing publishers to do on page optimization that may affect their serps or create problems with Yahoo and other search engines just to get relevant ads to display. Requiring relatively sophisticated geo-targetting that your run of the mill webmaster isn't really capable of, or interested in.
I want YPN to succeed. I want a viable option to Adsense. I want a choice in how I monetize my sites that doesn't include massive revenue cuts like the rest of the third rate ppc programs out there.
These are all things that YPN should want, too.
Far and away the best thing that you can do is bring in some new talent to get this relevancy issue fixed. Then get rid of, or fix that geo-targetting nonsense. And if you can do that, some nice perks like direct deposit would be great.
But if you can't handle the fundamental issue of contextually relevant ads in a contextual advertising program, I'm afraid G! will smash you into pieces, in the PPC realm, and in search as well.
My YPN publisher ID is the same as here. eslsociety. I would be happy to forward this to anyone that would listen.
First and foremost, please know that this is absolutely not a result of a change in payout structure. Advertisers did not pay the same amount as usual per click -- the code launch I mentioned earlier today affected advertiser CPCs, so the earnings you've seen are based on what advertisers were actually charged by Yahoo!
Definitely sounds like Yahoo's version of smartpricing is here.
They hinted to this at PubCon in Las Vegas. They didn't want to label it smartpricing, but they essentially said that they would have to figure out a way to discount the amount advertisers paid for clicks based on the varying values of traffic sources.
Not all clicks are created equal. Some version of smartpricing is going to happen to every successful ppc ad network.
Definitely sounds like Yahoo's version of smartpricing is here.
If that's the case, I'd request that Yahoo put a note about that somewhere. Seems they haven't even told the advertisers about it either.
So far the reps I have spoken with have said there is no revenue structure changes.
Something is still wierd...
So far the reps I have spoken with have said there is no revenue structure changes.
Just to clarify, YPN smartpricing wouldn't change the revenue structure. It would change what the advertisers pay for each click.
You're right though, they should update the beta publishers and advertisers on their new click evaluation thing.
Here's how the call went:
A4B: Just have a few questions - please bear with me.
For starters.... has Y! implemented a smart pricing type of algorhythm into effect?
Y!: No. Everything is exactly the same in that regard.
A4B: Has Y! kept a larger percentage of advertising payout?
Y!: No. Everything is exactly the same in that regard.
A4B: Is Y! discounting any clicks at all?
Y!: No. Everything is exactly the same in that regard.
A4B: Has Y! separated it's search inventory from it's content inventory and put it on a different bid system?
Y!: No. Everything is exactly the same in that regard.
A4B: Is the system experiencing any errors at all right now that are different than priot to Friday?
Y!: No, everything is working exactly as it did before hand.
A4B: Then what could cause my payouts to go from $x per hour to $x/100 since the change?
Y!: You are probably displaying different ads.
A4B: No, I see the exact same ads on my site now as I did before Friday.
Y!: I don't know what to tell you.
The truth would be nice.
It is the most bogus story I have ever heard. YPN should be honest with us and tell us the truth. That is all we are asking for.
DID THEY INTRODUCED SMART PRICING?
If Yes, then that signals the end of YPN as an able competitor against Google. Their only line of defense is shattered.
If no, then find that little bug that is eating away all my money and find it fast.
I have a feeling that alot of the higher paying ad's are not being displayed...
I've noticed that when certain ads are displayed on my site, I have a large revenue for the day, when they disappear I don't do well.
In the past week or so, I've noticed alot of those ads have not being shown, so perhaps it coudl be determined the payout structure is the same, but there is a lapse in advertisers that pay out at higher levels.
I also don't buy the smartpricing bit. My site would more than likely not be hit that hard. It has good content and was never hurt by smartpricing on Adsense.
Why should smart pricing even come into play?
Because all clicks are not equal.
Regarding asp4bunnies conversation with the YPN rep, I would say that most likely it's the usual case (with corporations) where one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.
If the overturerep said here that they discounted click prices for advertisers and the ypn phone rep said they aren't doing this, then obviously we're not the only one's not getting the full communication on the YPN status. Some of the employees themselves are a bit misinformed.
It used to add up perfectly but it no longer does after Friday 17. I
know there may be some screened traffic, perhaps this comes into play
now, but I would assume they screen traffic at the end of the month,
and adjust the monthly earnings as well as totals, so the numbers
"should" add up. Also, my "pending balance" was/is always equal to
"total balance", and I never had any of my traffic screened. (I
geo-target to the US.) Just wondering if anybody else has this
discrepancy now.
We will see tomorrow how Tuesday (Today) goes, I have a feeling things are getting back to normal though...
And today my earnings haven't been updated since 5am...
Most refreshes yield exactly the same thing... Since I'm not going to reveal exactly how much I make, I'll pretend I used to earn $40 an hour for ease of demonstration (or $10 every 15 minute refresh).
What I'm seeing for the last few days was about $1 every 15 minute refresh (or $4 an hour). But then I'm seeing occasional spikes where I get about $7 per refresh... almost back at previous levels. Does this mean my site is slowly returning to normal or I'm just seeing some click dumps?
Not a clue. I'll just continue to hit refresh and see what happens.
