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Just throwing stuff out there.
And if they show any extra benifet from it... boom. The war begins.
There are so many people on this board who whine about Adsense that all they have to do is come out with a product and they will get a serious amount of advertisers/publishers.
Yes, but does Yahoo want publishers who are unhappy with AdSense? It's more likely that Yahoo wants publishers who are making money hand over fist with AdSense.
It's like anything else:
- If you were recruiting salespeople, would you want the competition's lowest-earning or highest-earning reps?
- If you were a book publisher trying to lure authors away from your competitors, would you go after the authors with poor sales and royalties or the authors whose books are bestsellers?
Transparency. That's absolutely top of my mind with all this. Even if they said "SmartPricing could mean you get paid 10-50%", then at least we'd have some idea of what was going on.
Or better yet, show us the *conversion* rate of our websites. Forget the CTR, share the conversion rate anonymously - that would be better for both us and the advertisers. Then we could choose our content and adjust it appropriately. New content, for sure.
I also think it would be foolish NOT to test it out a serious alternative network. Run AdSense and Yahoo on every OTHER page on the site, switch them back and forth every day. Or run all AdSense in the morning one day, all Yahoo the next. And so on.
Unless one is significantly higher than the other, stay diversified.
I've read this is commonplace in some manufacturing circles. Keep the suppliers diversified, it keeps them staying on their toes giving you the best product and it keeps up competition for the lowest price/best quality. No one gets more than 70% of the supply contracts.
Still, it wouldn't surprise me if either company made this against the TOS. "No other contextual advertisers, period."
But, as others say, when they exist it'd be silly not to do a comparison test with Adsense on your sites, even if their features are essentially identical.
In the end it's money that will win, especially when the contract terms and customer service standard (Adsense's) are so easy to beat.
does Yahoo want publishers who are unhappy with AdSense?
What about the publishers banished from AdSense with no reason or recourse at all?
We read some click their own ads (idiots), some tell their friends to click (morons), some seem to legitimately have no clue what happened (martyrs).
My site makes a serious amount of coin each month and I'm happy with Adsense although I would be tempted to "test" Yahoo on a page or two for grins. However, if I suddenly got a letter from Google telling me my site was banned for no reason, with no recourse, Yahoo would definitely get my business.
But they've dropped the ball, time and time again. Not enough information. Changes implimented days before a letter about it. No heads-up on anything that's happening: login one morning and things look different. Even the payment terms are no great heck, compared to some affiliate programs.
Maybe the question should be is there anyone who *isn't* going to at least test out Yahoo's program? And for what reason?
It's funny, but only a few months ago I was a die-hard Google fan.
I was the same way, then I found WebmasterWorld. The AdSense discontent being spread is just as infectious as malcontents in an office environment, it's very bad for moral.
I must admit I get frustrated when it takes 100 additional clicks on Tues to make slightly less money than 100 less clicks made on Monday, but I'm not ready to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs over market fluctuations, not yet.
they could also take google's come-one-come-all approach and who knows where that would lead (other than the obvious hemorrhaging for google's bottom line--short term at least)
to attract publishers they need to offer terms at least as good as adsense. to keep them, they need to avoid some of the perceived shortcomings of adsense: most notably (my perception at least), the shortcomings seem to include persistent and erratic alterations in epc.
but it seems as though Y would definitely be in the catbird seat. for them, any extra revenue they get out of this is gravy---whereas for google it is ALL LOSS.
I would want Yahoo to charge a hefty fee - maybe a $250 to $500 review fee - for each domain registered.
That may cut down a little on the crappppy sites.
I have 3 domains that I no longer run adsense on due to poor targetting and ebay or similar adds that were not even relevent
steve
As soon as Y is in the game expect your revenue to drop, big time.
You think, assuming they use the Overture advertisers, than the cost per click for overture will plunge?
If it impacts negatively on Yahoo's bottom line I think they'll shut it down in a heartbeat.
More likely you may be right, we may get lower CPM rates in the long run, but at the moment we don't even qualify for Yahoo so let's remain optimistic in the the fact the Yahoo advertisers will take a while before they realize they can pay less for the same results.
I think everybody on this board is missing the threat. Yahoo (and later MSN) coming in will be a disaster for us all. Can you imagine doubling (or more) the advertising space available to advertisers and the price for advertising space to remain the same? No way, price for space will drop very significantly for all advertisers, both on G and Y and so will our revenue. It is just a simple demand and supply law. As soon as Y is in the game expect your revenue to drop, big time.
Not necessarily. The demand for PPC ad inventory has been growing (which may be one reason why Google has been slow to deal with "scraper sites" and other made-for-AdSense junk sites).
There could excess inventory in some categories, especially for ads that get distributed to many thousands of sites. But in other categories, there may still be a shortage of inventory. We'll have to wait and see.
The entry of Yahoo into the marketplace could be a good thing for advertisers and for publishers who have clean, high-quality sites in profitable niches. If overall cost per click does fall due to excess inventory, then Yahoo and/or Google will have an incentive to provide higher-quality referrals by purging junk sites that may be sucking up impressions, clicks, and ad budgets without delivering value to advertisers.
Can you imagine doubling (or more) the advertising space available to advertisers and the price for advertising space to remain the same?
Think about that for a minute. Again. The amount of advertising space is NOT going to DOUBLE just because Yahoo introduces a contextual ad program. Websites will have EITHER Adsense or Yahoo, not both at the same time.
Let's assume that 100 percent of website publishers out there now have signed up for Adsense. Those that don't stay with Adsense will go to Yahoo, but advertising space with not actually double. It can only double if there are twice as many publishers getting involved with either program.
Advertising prices may drop because of increased competition as advertisers shop around, but that will be a pain for many of them to keep up with all the time. Sooner or later, CPC will even out across the board at both places when things settle down.
My guess is Yahoo will offer advantages that Google doesn't and vice versa, and publishers will have to choose which program has the advantages they prefer.
The nice part about a new contextual program is that when I get kicked out of Google (for no fault of my own), I have someplace else I can go. This offers more stability to me as a publisher.
I don't mind losing a few dollars per CPM if I get some more stability. Afterall, I still want to be doing this 10 years from now.
Not only that, I've noticed in some ad categories that you see an entirely different cohort of advertisers. In other words, in some areas people use google or yahoo, not necessarily both.
How do we *know* that every one of those scraper sites aren't converting to sales?
We can guess all we want, but unless you can track conversion statistics, none of us have any idea how they do. Sure, I find them junk, and I doubt they work. But we don't really know for sure without statistics.
Anyway, I'm not worried about those because my guess is that SmartPricing takes care of the worst of them - how many people complaining about their CPM dropping rapidly over time have this kind of website? None of us know for sure.
As for letting advertisers choose - they have *no idea* whether your site or my site converts to sales better or not. Most of the affiliates I know have a "sample site" that they apply for to affiliate programs, and then they never, ever run them on that site.
No, if I was at Yahoo, I would offer not just the same program as Google, but I would add a few extra features to rip away market share from Google! Even if it costs me in the short-term, I can always toss out the sites that don't perform well in the long-term. I think they'd be making a BIG mistake to stick with only "premium" publishers, those over X amount of page views.
And as EuropeForVisitors said over on another thread - "AdSense is a market of niches" - so again, having publishers over a certain page view limit could work against this long term.
“The amount of advertising space is NOT going to DOUBLE just because Yahoo introduces a contextual ad program. Websites will have EITHER Adsense or Yahoo, not both at the same time”
So look for more people to push the bounds of what AdSense finds acceptable, if the Yahoo program shows any promise at all! And vice versa.
“The amount of advertising space is NOT going to DOUBLE just because Yahoo introduces a contextual ad program. Websites will have EITHER Adsense or Yahoo, not both at the same time”
I wonder how much "space" was created just to accomodate Adsense?
Ok, the space available may not double, but if the Y program is like Adsense, there's no reason to belive it won't result in some considerable amount of new space being created.
I am sick of all of you complaining about so-called-scraper sites.... To be honest, they provide the best conversion rates on the net.. Much better than your message forums or content sites. I have seen that when people get to scraper sites, they already have entered them by searching for the keywords.. The ones that aren't interested simply move.. BUT, the ones that click on the ads CONVERT. Now, on some high traffic forums and content sites, I get mostly lookie lous.. I would love to pull my ads from these sites.
I hope yahoo does allow scraper sites and allow me as an advertiser to pull my ads from content sites.
I am sick of all of you complaining about so-called-scraper sites....
Guess you're confusing what I consider "made for adsense" sites that have some value and decent conversion vs. truely scraper sites that just muck up the SERPs with garbage pages that people close before they click on anything. If the SERPs return nothing but true scraper sites people will stop using the search engines and your online advertising budget won't be worth the paper it's printed on.
Cut out the middle man, advertise on them directly and save half your money.
How do we *know* that every one of those scraper sites aren't converting to sales?
I really don't care if they convert or not. I'd like to have a program for people who care about being seen as a quality publisher or advertiser. There have got to be some advertisers that care about what kinds of sites they are seen on simply because quality sites will help their reputation.
I'd like to see Yahoo offer a program similar to AdSense just for diversification. Google would not be the one to lose traffic to Yahoo but some marginal affiliate programs would.
So look for more people to push the bounds of what AdSense finds acceptable, if the Yahoo program shows any promise at all!
More people than now? That's hard to believe!
And why should anyone who's bounced from AdSense for pushing the bounds of what's acceptable expect to be welcomed by Yahoo? If Yahoo is smart, its standards will be higher than AdSense's, not lower.
C
