YahOverture Conversions Sliding?

Mine are - and yours?

[chewy]

I've been noticing a slide in conversions on one of my sites - tonight I just dug in deep to the logfiles and noticed an increase in what appear to be Yahoo "content" type sites (mostly domainparks but also new entries) that have sharply increased.

I'm assuming this is happening for everybody but I don't know and can't tell from reading threads here a few screens back.

I'm not mentioning the content partners as I recognize some of them as, shall we say, familiar.

I sure hope that the big Y goes in the direction of being able to opt out of these types of sites.

[IanTurner]

I've seen a drop in ROI in some areas (I don't have figures for conversion rate by SE available) but I have been reasonably pleased by the way the conversion rate has held up in other areas.

The drop in ROI tends to be in more generic search terms, with specifics holding their ROI better.

[vphoner]

You are talking about CONTENT, not search...correct?

[chewy]

last I knew, you could only by it undistinguished, that is, search and content combined.

If we can split this out, this puts a very different spin on things.

is this a simple checkbox in the Ovr / YSM interface?

I'm just dealing with the stats (from logfiles only) at this time.

[chewy]

this client is only using the "search" feature.

These really smell like content sites.

And clearly these visitors are coming in via Overture, with clear referral information in the logfiles.

[UnitedRigo]

There are *many* parked domains and other made for advertising sites in the Yahoo Search listings. I am not talking about the content listings but the Sponsored Search. Ever since Yahoo lost MSN it has added many low quality "partners". They even have partners that re-sell the Sponsored Search listings to even lower quality partners. The whole thing is a joke and you can not opt out of having your ads show on these sites. These sites belong in the Content Ads section but Yahoo seems to be making too much money on these to care.

[chewy]

Can somebody please alert the mainstream press?

This is absurd.

It is deceptive. Some might say criminal.

PPC is a good thing - but with this kind of noise distorting the signal, PPC has the risk of becoming polluted to the point of uselessness and 'net wide standards must be put in place to prevent this kind of behavior.

Need we put in place an EPA equivalent to protect the 'net from increasingly becoming a breeding ground for scammers and worse?

[gregbo]

This has already made the mainstream press. Basically, as long as people continue to advertise with them, they have no incentive to stop the practice.