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There is now a daily budget feature under accounting. It lets you specify how much to budget per day (however, I don't see any details under their help for exactly how it'll work - if it'll be nonstop until the budget is hit, or space out the impressions like AdWords). The default 'auto credit charge' is a full month's budget. So, you might want to make sure that you're not being charged 10k at a time, but rather a number you're comfortable with.
The new advanced match system is now in place where you can choose either standard or advanced match. As before, there are some words that it won't let you switch the matching option (I've got both 1 word and 3-4 word phrases that it won't let me change).
However, some of those words that aren't changed when you change more than one at once, or change an entire category's match level, will let you change the match options if you just select that specific word and try to change its match option. (Odds are, there is a bug at the category or keyword level that will later be changed.)
As previously noted, you can now have 45 negative keywords.
If you use Overture conversion stats, the stats previous to 10/2 aren't showing up in the 'Manage precision match' area, however, you can still run reports which contain this data.
The new login interface? Who cares if nothing else works.
As to be expected there are annoying glitches.
The bid page listings are not in alphabetical order. When I clicked on the arrow at the top left to re-sort them they did not re-sort and it took 2 min. 8 seconds for the page to load. After years of reviewing my listings one way it's totally confusing to see them all mixed up especially with all the mispellings we use. Please fix it fast!
I tried to personalize the page to include impressions and after another long, long wait the columns with impressions did not appear.
At that point I logged out to go back to the NE - Bills game. There is a life outside Over.
jd
Some accounts have 'tracking URLs' turned on as well, which is interfering with some tracking systems. It seems fairly random which accounts had content match & tracking URLs switched on.
And in one account, I found certain words offline which were previously online, and vice versa.
Seems its a day to fix Overture's messes.
It's almost like the people who are making the changes have no idea about the practical use of their interfaces. Did no one test this out before implementing these changes? I just had a deja vue. We.ve been through this all before.
I don't understand how this happens; does over not have a 'QA' system before it rolls out to production? The CIO should be fired in my opinion -
jd
Edit: For the duplication errors, I figured maybe some terms got rolled up into other terms for some odd reason. Looks like they did not, as the the two search yield different results. Looks like I cannot even change my title and description.
I worked in a IT department, and I can tell you this: Overture has NO CLUE how to move a major change into production and test for errors.
I also complained about pages loading slowly and was told to try only 40 terms per page. It was already on 40 terms per page and this morning at 7 AM it took 1 min. 23 seconds to load.
I have tried a few searches with keywords I do not want to come up, and my ad didn't show (some competitors did), so maybe it really is set at Standard Match.
Anyway, I have asked Overture to let me know what is happening...
Can't add funds to the account. The new system automatically credits when you run 'low', but if you run out, there's no way of crediting anymore.
If you have not switched to the new budget system, there are two ways to credit still.
The first is to click on the (add funds) link next to your total balance in the right hand corner of the screen where it also lists 'active keywords' etc.
The second is from the Money Manager screen. Near the top of the page is some text about the new budget, and an orange link to add funds manually (if you've switched your budget options, this frame is left empty).
Due to their adding functionality to how categories are used, this is also where many of the bugs are being found. (For instance, try to update the bids on a category level for more than one category at once, and the system will error).
The tech team has fixed the initial round of errors, and the second round of errors are suppose to be fixed by this afternoon.
No one at Overture seemed confident enough to give a time frame for when the load speed will increase again. Right now it's very slow for a lot of people (especially when you hit any 'submit' buttons).
I have to go through hoops to get a refund
I might not even get those ~ 333 clicks ($50/0.15) at all - I might want to close my site or my niche is very specific - why do I have to pay for nothing?
I do understand that you have to be smart and sly in business but most of Yahoo's policies well above that! It's called cynical deceit - how does that combine with the PR image you're trying to build ah?
If you don't scrutinize and rescrutinize a single line of their terms for this or that service you gonna get ripped-off big time - how do I hate all that!
I am ready to pray to all gods the humanity knows so that Yahoo runs bankrupt next fiscal year and their ads market is taken by somebody with a more honest approach to customers.
You are correct in stating that all Overture does with every change is to take more money. They will do it until advertisers start leaving their product.
As long as adverstisers sign up, this means overture can charge more and more fees.
I think pretty soon Overture is going to hit an inflection point with PPC - more advertisers will soon start to generate negative ROI. I see it happening today - only question is how much more negative ROI advertisers can there be when Overture finally realizes they can no longer jack up fees?
MSN and longhorn will take care of "jacking up fees" shortly anyway. Be patient.
jd
