submissions denied - again!

[Wired Suzanne]

Regardless if I copy, modify or submit all new, ads seem to be denied by default. Could be just a change in capitalization, or replacing/updating a single word. Same for overture US/UK/DE.

Overture may use robots to check on ad submissions. Anyone knows more?

[Sztraik]

Don't you get any reject reason?

[Wired Suzanne]

good point. the last update was for for overture DE

under [secure.overture.com...] 'reasons' fields would be blank.

compared that with overture US. here a small description is provided. could be fault in the DE system.

thanks

[Sztraik]

Without a reason it is hard to say. Did the keywords have searches for the market you submit them to?
I know they can refuse search terms that nobody looked for in the past. To be sure ask Overture the reason.
The editorial process can be a real pain with Overture until you get to understand the rules they have, at least the ones that concern you. In my case I rarely get anything rejected now and when I do at least I finally understand why, but it wasn't easy...

PS
I only advertise in Europe by the way

[Elric99]

Hello Sztraik and everyone else.

One thing that confuses me with Overture is I rarely get a reason why something was declined. I know there's meant to be a section where reasons are listed next to phrases, but for me they're usually blank.

I'm wondering how you guys manage to get to the root of the reason for a decline?

Thanks

[Sztraik]

Hi Elric,

I personally get a reason next to the rejected terms, on which I can click to get a longer explanation.
If you don't get any reason I can imagine some frustration.

[Red_Dog]

If you don't see the reason your listings were declined, download the spreadsheet. For some reason that only Yahoo knows, they show up there.

[OvertureRep]

Hi Elric99-
Yes, you should get a reason by each rejected term. Feel free to send me a private email if you want me to get some help for you.

YahooSarah

[Elric99]

How odd! The reasons are not shown online but are shown on the downloaded spreadsheet - as Red_Dog suggested.

Thanks for the help. This should help a lot.

[rich_b]

Good tip there! I've just applied to Overture for the first time and so far I've had 9 of about 40 keywords declined. The rest are pending. The reason given for each in the spreadsheet is "T/D: Specificity/User Experience". Any idea what this means?

[Sztraik]

Hi,

I believe it means that titles and descriptions were not specific enough for the keyword. From my experience with Overture titles or descriptions usually must be at least as specific as the keyword they appear for.
This means that if your keyword is "blue widget" your listing should mention it and something like "widget in all colours" could not be enough.
I hope this is clear, my explanations usually suck :-)

[YSMeditor]

Good explanation Sztraik.

On top of qualifying the keyword in T&Ds, research shows that users gravitate towards listings where the keyword is included at the beginning of the title and within the description.

As you know, descriptions are truncated in the results displayed on Yahoo's right rail. If you're going to insert any part of the keyword phrase in the description, have it appear within the first 80 characters. In addition, important messaging like "free shipping" should also not be buried.

[rich_b]

Thanks for your replies and apologies to Wired Suzanne for jumping in on her thread like this.

My problem might be that I submitted just one ad for a service provider with a generic but very clear title (i.e. Provider of services for anyone with a certain medical condition). That condition can affect any part of the body and people may search for "service provider" + "body part" so I want "body part" in my keywords but not in my ad text as there is no point. If I was a mechanic I wouldn't put "Mechanic - we fix broken wheel bearings" and run 100's of ads, one for for each car component. I'd have one ad that said something like "Mechanic - all car repairs undertaken" and then put "wheel bearings" in my keywords. The former makes sense, the latter doesn't.

If I am understanding this correctly then I should cancel my one ad submission (if this is possible) and resubmit loads of ads, each with very few keywords which must be in the ad text. Wow! That's a lot more work for me and Overture. Should I really do this?

[Kiska]

I submitted an ad to be changed to the ad that Yahoo recommended and it got denied. From that I have concluded that all they have is a bunch of Yahoos working on their editorial team! :(

[cline]

The reasons don't show up in Mozilla; they show up in IE.

[eWhisper]

It is also very common to see a huge list of keywords denied for 'broken url', when the site has been up 100% of the time.

There are certain URLs that Yahoo has had to manually approve for us, and other times we just have our rep put the entire list back into editorial.

[cline]

eWhisper, no kidding about the broken url problem. Overture UK took down 2k listings for one of my UK clients last week on this same problem. Interestingly, the same client's US listings encountered no problems.

Overture UK's so-called "Client Services" seems quite unconcerned about the issue and keeps sending boilerplate that the listings will be reviewed in 3-5 business days in response my emails to them about how much money they are losing due to a problem that they themselves caused.

[cline]

Here's a new horror story about Overture UK. After taking down 2000 listings for "broken url" on a site that wasn't down, their editors rejected 79% of them. Just a year ago, when the client got a new site, editors there approved all of these listings.

I'm so disgusted with Overture UK.