The YPN honeymoon is over

[yosaid]

With such dismal earnings for the last week and half, and the programming changes to YPN algorithm, it looks like the honeymoon is over for many of the publishers.

YPN's earnings have been dwindling at a rate of 10 to 25% per month for the majority of publishers. Within the next 4 months earnings may go down to that of Adsense according to the trend experienced by most YPN beta testers.

Do you think the honeymoon is over for you? For me I have 2 months to match my old Adsense earnings if this downward trend continues.

I feel sorry for international publishers who are still waiting for YPN.

Oh, and Yahoo stock is taking a lot of beating in the stock exchange.

What is next? Microsoft? ... maybe ... maybe not.

[pcgamez]

I've noticed the trend as well. My CPM has dropped to about 1/4 of what it was (only slightly higher than AdSense) in the past 10 days. I think banning a lot of domains last night will help a bit, but it is still a major hit for me.

Disclaimer:
I am aware that each advertisers experiences will be different. Do not judge based only on my experiences.

[jameswross]

Yosaid where did you get this information?

My EPC has fallen, but its still great; what makes you think it will continue to drop?

[Wiley]

Mine is actually going up. Also Yahoo stock got hit but Google has now been lowered to "Sell"

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stifel Nicolaus on Wednesday cut its rating on shares of Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to "sell" from "hold," saying it has long harbored concerns about the Internet search engine's lofty valuation and now believes the earnings disappointment from Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has broken the sector's momentum."

The whole market segment is going to get hit but that means that to get back on track they need to improve their products and contextual advertising is one of their biggest. I think this will actually benifit the publisher.

[emodo]

I just put YPN on my site and for the last 9 hours has just shown Vonage ads. I am guessing they are the default ads, and if so is kind of pathetic, I am in a big niche.

[Wiley]

It takes days before the targeting take effect. 9 hours is not enough time. Give it at least 3 days.

[Lex_Luther]

My PPC amount is dropping like a rock for the last two days

[TammyJo]

Is this just situational? Our earnins have remained the same (which is higher still than our Adsense click value). Could it be sector specific...cause "I just ain't seein' it"?

[wyweb]

Within the next 4 months earnings may go down to that of Adsense according to the trend experienced by most YPN beta testers

Where exactly are you getting this information... what trend? Where's the data to support this? A handful of people are reporting that their earnings are falling and you're calling it a trend?

[garyr_h]

A change in algo could mean that different publishers are now seeing the high end of the biddings. Same as a search engine shakeup of SERPs. When one site loses rankings, another gains.

I have seen the same amount of money despite having traffic more than doubled. So for me, CPM is about 1/2, but do I think it's part of a 'trend'? Definately not.

[eslsociety]

My EPC has been climbing again for the last week, and I had my best day with YPN to date yesterday.

[sirkei]

Hmm, weird for me.

I have been dropping since last week or earlier. Very dissapointing.

[sailorjwd]

My last somewhat good day was Jan 9th.

Since then my traffic has gone up by about 40% due to some more content, more efficient advertising and improvement in the serps and more Internet traffic in general.

With that 40% visitor increase comes a revenue drop of 30% - go figure.

Seems like the same ads but they are paying like 50% less in EPC.

I've had some bad days before but 11 in a row is tooo long! Today is pitiful.

[hdpt00]

50% drop in CPM, very disapointing. I know they recently had bad earnings, but their higher CPC was the only thing they had going for them, they better up it again, especialy since it's still beta. If this is the result of publishers opting out or something like that, YPN is going to be in soe big trouble even before it launches.

[Wiley]

I am not seeing that at all. Traffic is increasing slowly and CTR is slightly up and CPC is staying the same. To get these results I have to update my ad blocking to get rid of ads that are not targeted properly but that just takes a few minutes each day.

[wtbwtb]

The metric I tend to watch is CTR. When we have a good CTR day we have a good revenue day.

Since we moved about 80% of our ad space over to YPN, in the beginning of December, we have had a very consistent EPC (+/- 10%).

There was a period from December 22 through January 1 where our CTR doubled on average. These were our best revenue days by far. The ads were right on target. Did anyone else experience this?

All I need to do is see what ads are displayed on my sites and if they are targeted we have a good day and if they are not we have a bad day.

I believe that YPN will get their ad targeting close to Adsense before this thing comes out of beta. That would be a good thing.

[yosaid]

My analysis and inside information into the inner workings of YPN world is right on target. Here are the few points I know. I spend hours analyzing data, trends and finding information from other well established YPN beta testers.

Here are few changes to YPN which will affect your earnings from now on.

1. There has been programming changes and it will affect many websites negetively (lowered EPC)
2. YPN is keeping more of the profit previously given out as "premium beta tester cash" by means of higher EPC. YPN feels comfortable they have built enough publisher stock and a "high EPC" reputation.
3. More sites are joining everyday to get their share of the profit.
4. Advertiser minimum budget is lowered to 5 dollars which means more RON style websites poping up on your screen.

[Wiley]

I am not real sure that any of these things are true. If YPN runs out of ads then they show RON ads. That is not happing to me. Second if they are taking more profit then CPC would be going down. Again that is not happening to me. I think we are in a Beta program and YPN is still working out the bugs. There are going to be changes and some are going to be positive and some negitive. All we can do as publishers is look at the quality of the ads and make adjustments with Ad Targeting and Ad Blocking. If we see a real issue like Ads go away or you can NEVER get the right ads then call them and tell them. I think right now lets not judge YPN or predict what is going to happen until we get through this beta. If after the beta we see that adsense is better then we all go back if we can. If YPN is better then we stay.

[garyr_h]

Well, whatever it is... YPN better turn the switch back. I've been in since September and have praised them/defended them numerous times. And what is the thanks I get?

A $0.50 eCPM, that's what.

And between this and the Justice Department deal, plus the crappy SERPS, Yahoo! your plate is full and if it's not fixed soon... well, I think we all know what will happen.

[asp4bunnies]

What would be wonderful is if some of you'd stop threatening Yahoo with meaningless threats and make concrete recommendations on how to work within the changes as you notice them to appear.

Endless moaning is why I stopped checking in on the Adsense forum as much, and it's far too early in the Yahoo game for it to start here.

And yes, my EPC is down. Way down. But I just hit the drawing board and find new ways to improve it on my own.

[garyr_h]

asp4bunnies, Yet you just whined about us whining and you didn't give us your 'ways to improve'.

[JollyK]

Heh. Yes, CTR is way down. EPC is way down. It started out being a bit above Adsense, but is so far down now that I'm thinking about going back to Adsense again.

I'm sure this is just growing pains. Maybe it will go back up. The sites I'm using it on never made that much with Adsense, so I'm not particularly losing money.

I'm not very impressed, tho', so far.

JK

[NoLimits]

I concur... It was fun while it lasted.

EPC fell dramitcally for me over the last week. CTR is just as crappy as it always was.

[iwl88]

In a strange twist, things have completely recovered in the past two days for me. I'm seeing CTRs and EPCs like I did back in November and it's very surprising.

[Wiley]

This is a beta and it is going to change. We have a few more months of this so we need to see what works and what does not work and report it ALL to YPN.

[wyweb]

This is really strange. I started out in mid November. EPC was off the friggin' charts for the first 14 days straight. I mean I was really having trouble believing it. Over the course of the next 2 months, EPC and CPM fell gradually. The pivitol date was 12/7/05 for me. Within a month my CPM had fallen from well over 5.00 to about 1.50 or so and my EPC had gone down the tubes with it. I was completely at a loss to explain this. The ads appeared to be the same. Targeting was still fairly poor but there'd been no significant move in CTR. I was basically getting the same number of clicks from the same type of ads, but earning about 4 times less than I was when I started out. I started a thread in here about this earlier and the common consensus at the time was that it was advertiser's bids that were impacting these numbers. I didn't believe that then and I don't believe it now.

Today, for no apparent reason, I'm seeing earnings similar to what I saw during those first 2 weeks. This is completely out of the blue. I don't know yet what my CTR and EPC is. Those figures won't be available for another 6 hours. I've checked my logs to rule out any sudden spikes in traffic which could account for this sudden and dramatic increase but there weren't any.

iwl88 reports a recovery beginning 2 days ago. For me it began this morning. Is anyone else seeing this? It's at this point far too preliminary for me to be calling this anything but an anomaly but it's definitely encouraging.

[garyr_h]

"The pivitol date was 12/7/05 for me."

Interesting. That was the date that my earnings went up. So apparently something happened on that date as well for us to see those effects. I just wish some others would chime in and tell what they have been seeing as far as trends go with their particular site.

[wyweb]

Well, I guess it was an anomaly after all. I seem to be back to normal today, which is to say earnings in the toilet.

Maybe if I stick my head down there and blow bubbles they'll come back up.. :-(

[NoLimits]

Yesterday with yahoo, I experienced my lowest EPC ever.

When I say lowest EPC ever - I am speaking in terms of every PPC program I've been a part of in over 7 years of being a webmaster. (Including a bad stretch of smart pricing I had with AdSense)

It went from phenominal, which lasted for about 70 days (greater than $1 per click) to offensive (less than 3 cents per click) in a matter of one day... like a light switch.

As mentioned prior, no change in CTR.

[SincerelySandy]

I also have had a serious drop in EPC starting on about the 21st of Jan. My EPC dropped to about 1/3 what is was. It is now the lowest EPC I have had from any ad program.