New Overture Policy

[Mike_Mackin]

*paraphrase*

You may utilize the Overture and View Bids Tool to assess bid amounts for specific search terms. We provide this information because it is Overture's policy to make bid prices transparent to both current and potential advertisers.

This open policy has allowed ("bots") to access Overture's systems, which has led to some performance issues on the Overture.com site. For this reason, beginning November 3, 2002, Overture will modify the way advertisers access search term bid information.

Advertisers may type in a search term to view the corresponding search results. To access the bidding information for this set of results, advertisers will be able to click on "View Advertiser's Max Bids" in the upper right hand corner of the search results page. A pop-up window will then open, with the search term already populated. To generate the bidding information, advertisers can type a four-character Image Access Code.

By requiring manual input of an Image Access Code, Overture's overall site performance will improve while still allowing current and potential advertisers who utilize bid information for legitimate purposes to have access to it.

[ / paraphrase ]

[webdiversity]

Think the performance issue has been more to do with the speed with which editors turn things around.

I can't believe this is happening Sunday, without giving anyone that uses the service a lot to evaluate how best to manage thousands of keywords.

This is definately a development to watch. For those "approved" bid management tools this is bound to be fantastic news.

Still, until I see it work won't know how good or bad it will be. The jury has gone for a pizza.

[Crazy_Fool]

well, it looks like the information will still be available, just we have to do a bit more work to access it. a necessary evil?

>>Think the performance issue has been more to do with the
>>speed with which editors turn things around

yep, i think this is a problem. something i've noticed is that it looks like editors are manually adding our listings once they approve them - ie, rather than simply clicking an "approve" button, they have to manually retype them into the system.

i added a batch of bids a couple of weeks ago, but the clickthroughs didn't come. it was only when i increased the text size in my browser that i noticed the keywords had been mistyped - ie, keyword has become kyeword and hence the bid doesn't show in searches for keyword. a closer look at other listings on a couple of accounts shows several errors creeping in here and there - one listing submitted as "keyword1 keyword2" has become "keyword1 and keyword2".

i also use tracking URLs specific to each listing so i can track which search terms / clickthroughs any sales have come from (ie, source=a1 for one listing, source=a2 for the second listing and so on). i've noticed that when a batch of listings are added at the same time, all listings in that batch suddenly end up with the same tracking URL.

so, i'm having to check listings very carefully to make sure they've been added properly .....

[bigjohnt]

This throws a major kink in my keyword research and budget estimation for new clients. I haven't seen it yet, but I am sure it also makes my bid monitoring tools obsolete. Dang.

Overture just keeps becoming less of an option for me to sell my clients, due to their "enhancements."

First they screw up the suggestion tool, now they make it more difficult to see if using OV is a viable, cost effective option to my clients - before they commit funds.

while still allowing current and potential advertisers who utilize bid information for *legitimate purposes* to have access to it.

What possible "illegitimate purpose" can be served by gaining the knowledge of a search term bid price at Overture? This is silly. They are merely making it more difficult for "middlemen" to sell their service. Bad idea. If its really a performance issue, get some more hardware to handle all bid inquiries.

<whine>This is not a good way to start my weekend.....</whine>

[bigjohnt]

Okay. Its here. As suspected, it makes my keyword bid research for clients VERY difficult. I hope wordtracker makes a deal with them for "approved" access to the db.
I imagine a vast number of folks won't even do the bid research, just send in thousands of terms bid at .05 to be researched after the editors see them - putting a much greater load on the editors, by submitting terms they can't afford to bid on competitively.
This is going to be interesting.

[webdiversity]

I suppose the two things that immediately struck me were this :

1. You can still do a check of the database to establish the number historical searches that have been made.

2. It seems that to manage the process, you need only input the ransom code once per session.

But it does make some of the bid monitoring tools obsolete, including the one we used.

It's a shame they felt the need to implement this change pretty much without any notice ( I got an e-mail late Friday night), and without even a courtesy to companies that provide PPC management as a service, so that we could advise clients on what is happening and what it means and to investigate some form of contingency arrangement.

As for the issue of listing approval, like Crazy_Fool, we have had plenty of listings keyed in badly. We've also had the extremes of service. Today we submitted some keywords for the US market, they were approved inside a few hours..... we have some keywords in for the UK market which have been in the hopper since 24th October, with no end in sight to them coming online.

I know that all of these things are being done because they are vicitms of their own success. I am sure that their servers take a pounding, but to implement an across the board ban for all but those that use the approved solutions is not good in my humble opinion.

[Tropical Island]

In order to see the bids on a 2 word or more search terms you have to elininate the the symbols between the words and redo your search. What a time waster! Can't tell if this is intentional or just a glitch. Probably the latter.