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Overture refuses to accept my keywords involving my pay per click engine. How sad.
Is it fair to single PPC engines out just because we are "potential" competition?
Go look yourself under anything regarding PPC, it isn't there! Even though they get plenty of searches on the topic. Gee, if Search Engines are there to supply the user what he needs, then why do the ban these sites?
UNFAIR OVERTURE!
Can they should be sued for that!?
I know many PPC's that would like to advertise there, and to take advantage of all the Search Engines you get placed on as well.
Well, What do you guys think about that?
Thanks
Mulesmurf
Would you advertise your competitors on your web site?
Would you expect them to sue you if you dont accept their advertising?
I'm in the same boat with the local newspaper. We have a couple of really old clients (early days), that would love to advertise their domain name in classifieds. However, the local paper does not allow domain names in anything smaller than 1/8pg ads. Instead, they point you to their online site and ask you to buy an ad in their "directory".
General search terms like RV financing (not the actual term) and related queries get a fair number of searches but since the company doesn't do business in every state they would not accept bids on general terms like RV financing. They need to be regional. Fine, except that there aren't enough monthly searches with a regional modifier to bid on anything.
The first time this happened we interpreted their comments to mean that we had to put a regional modifier in the title/description so we did, and resubmitted. They shot it down again stating they would not accept bids on a term like RV financing or RV loans unless an RV loan could be offered to everyone regardless of the state in which they lived.
Despite discussions with a few different people there, they still said no. :(
There has been a lot of "buzz" about the shift in editorial standards at Overture.
Currently, Overture will sacrifice revenues, to try and keep the major portal partners content. I know that you can list the general terms such as "RV Financing" in Google AdWords with "zero" problem, but we've seen Google start to tighten down with more restrictive editorial standards also.
It all comes down to "who is the real client", the Portal. If MSN expresses concern over the quality of Overture listings, you can bet Overture is going to do what it takes to keep MSN satisfied.
It's humorous, because we some advertisers complain about high bid pricing, yet others are bidding past the point of break even ROI.
I recently saw an example where the advertiser had perfectly relevant content for the targeted keyword, yet Overture sent the advertiser an email indicating they were monitoring CTR (click through ratio), and that the advertiser's CTR was not performing to Overture's satisfaction. The eMail went on to indicate, that if the advertiser's CTR did not improve, that Overture was going to delete the listing. They then offered suggestions about changing Title/Description text.
So, though Overture is sacrificing revenues with tightened editorial standards, they are also targeting non-performing listings for removal based on CTR.
I'm also suspect that a search engine would not get much traffic from Overture. After all, what percentage of Overture's top bid could you afford if you have lower ppc's, and a certain percentage of users will not even click on a listing on your site. Therefore you must be way down the listings, and not getting much traffic anyway.
I would complain however that the listings for the term "search engine" on Overture are terrible, and should not just be listings for SEO's. I see no reason why ppc's can't and should not list their sites there (except for the fact, that nobody can afford $0.05 a click to bring a person to their search engine; notice how almost all the $0.02 a click search affiliate programs have disappeared or no longer accept new applications.)
