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"Given our commitment to providing a world-class search experience, it is important that we provide highly relevant search results to our users. High user satisfaction increases our ability to expand agreements with leading partners such as Yahoo!, America Online, and MSN, which results in more quality leads for our advertisers. We have also found that highly relevant search results help our advertisers receive much higher clickthrough and conversion rates.
[overture.com...]
(edited by: Brett_Tabke at 9:09 pm (utc) on Jan. 17, 2002)
I just got this email, and sent it off to everyone I knew who may have been interested.
I for one, am very pleased with the results of this. In the past, I was an advocate for ignoring and abolishing PPC models. In recent months though, I have learned to appreciate what Overture can offer. I think that this, in conjunction with some of the Commercial Alert efforts, will force a bit cleaner model to be followed.
All in all, this is, IMHO, the best thing Overture has done. The repercussions of this could last forever.
Sites that are affiliates which rely on click-throughs to get referral credit
Sites that use frame-based navigation
Sites whose information is contained in a membership area requiring a login to access or even dynamic content
I can see these changes as an honest effort to address concerns about quality results being served, but I wonder if this is taken literally as a blanket rule, is Overture biting the hand that feeds them to satisfy Yahoo perhaps? Interesting timing.
As for my experience with Overture, for the most part, in the areas I have researched the vast majority of bids allowed were relevant already.
those guidelines will help produce a postive ROI regarless of the particular business model of the search engine you happen to be targeting.
I applaud their intent. My initial reaction is to wonder if this "no home page" rule is strictly enforced, will Overture lose a lot of their bidding customers along with that revenue? Perhaps good riddance, but will Overture think so? We will see how this all plays out. My guess is there may be some valid exceptions they'll allow for.
For my 2 cents, I don't think Yahoo, or any particular partner, had anything directly to do with these changes. It's more likely the success of the Overture Program itself and people's PPC model concerns. Apparently they were serving more bad results than I was aware of.
I'm not so sure about that. When the Yahoo deal was announced, Yahoo said that it was a temporary deal that will only run (thru April) until the can put together their own ppc program.
Obviously, Oveture would like to convince them that it's in their best interest to stay with them. The same thing applies to the MSN deal.
The biggest critisim PPC gets from those that oppose it, is its lack of relevance. The vbest thing Oveture can do to convince new partners to sign up and old partners to stay is to make sure that they improve their editorial process.
In the beginning when their goal was to build their advertiser base, it made sense for them to have a fairly liberal editorial policy. Now that they have a large base of advertisers, their goal is to build distribution. That requires more attention to quality.
The number of advertisers who might leave because of the direct path policy will be miniscule compared to the number of new advertisers that will sign up because of the increase in their distribution network.
This is exactly the stuff we preach to our customers. I also wonder who they will handle frame sites. I guess we shall hear in a few weeks when people start gettin' the boot.
-Andrea
My biggest headache is going thru my hundreds of listings and making sure they all comply in terms of which page the URL's point to. I must admit I was a bit lazy with some listings and pointed to the home page which in turn links to the relevant area.
Lesson learnt - do it right the first time.
Thanks!
1. They have come under presssure from MSN ect to raise their relevance following the bad effect that overture listings have on the rellevance of their partners sites.
2. Before, it was in the interest of Goto to sign up as many people as possible to get brand recognition and user experience with their system. Now with their partners and general acceptance and strong brand, Overture can be more selective. Being market leader they can say to advertisers - "if you don't like it - then get outta here.." They would never have dared say that before.. It is a policy directed from a position of strength.
3. It can also reinforce Goverture's market leadership in the PPC market by further increasing their quality over their competitors, - now they have the room to move to develop quality rather than generating raw hits.
Let's not mistake the new policy for altruism! - just good strategy.
As listing requirements become specific enough, and site owners have to add content to justify being returned for a search phrase, Goverture sounds more and more like a real search engine. It might even make sense for some site owners to optimize for their target terms... they will have already taken the first steps in that direction.
