IMO...A lack of advertisers is the problem right now.
See Yahoo serps...just as bad.
My CTR has dropped 80%
It should get better as more advertisers come aboard in the spring.
Let's not forget who their competition is...Tried & True G...
Yahoo will get there.
Fish Texas

No, its not a lack of advertisers. The site I have Y! ads on is a travel site. Topic: "Hotel Reservations in Florida." You are trying to tell me that Y! does not have enough ads to fill two ad blocks on my pages for that subject?

Time to sell my Y! stock. Kramer just said, "Panama can't miss..."

:LOL:

If it's a lack of advertisers, I'd rather they didn't serve any ads than serve stuff way off topic.

I'd be happy to serve alternate ads rather than ads that are so far off topic it's not funny.

Going in and blocking the URLs of the poorly targeted ads seems like a never ending job and not all that effective. I'm battling "financial services" ads and loosing.

I've swiched a few pages I was testing Yahoo ads on back to AdSense since my click through ratio was so low that even with higher paying clicks I was still losing money.

Maybe there are some niches that Yahoo serves very well. I just haven't found one yet. Maybe financial services?

Wow! And I thought the targeting was off before... I see stock ads all over my sites.

I know they're in beta, but gee, you would think it might get better after 2 years.
I don't think it's a lack of advertisers, I think it's a lack of interest in making YPN better. Maybe they got too much going on elsewhere.

Anyone know if M$ going to try something similar?

I think it's about time YahooSarah comments on the poor revelancy of ads.

We on this forum are supposed to be partners in the development of YPN (so they say)and we understand that many bugs must be worked out.

HOWEVER...We have repeatedly expressed concerns over verious problems and MOST importantly discussed it (revelancy) amongst ourselves trying to find some answers.
YahooSarah's silence about our concerns is not giving us as partners, proper consideration.

I for one am losing money with the revelancy problem as I'm sure many of you are.
We have stuck with YPN through their beta and I'm sure many here including myself, were excited with a new kid (YPN) on the block.

Our excitement is fading fast, however many of us still want to stick it out...BUT, YahooSarah needs to break the silence and keep us up to date.
Isn't that what a partner is supposed to do?
Fish Texas

I believe Yahoo is overwhelmed while being under staffed. Not enough muscle to get the job done. It takes a long time and great management to create good code.

Management is likely running around protecting their butts and not getting anything done - too much individual risk. They are likely still putting out the fires from Panama.

I wouldn't expect any significant improvement until late summer.

On the other side, i think Google will lose adwords clients compared to optimal increases due to their continued disregard for individuals and small businesses - constantly experimenting on live systems will be give Yahoo enough customers to keep alive.

Google's constant pushing of new code without thorough testing is absolutely absurd (who does google think it is? Microsoft?) If google were in banking they'd all be in jail.

Anther problem is that targeting isn't consistant.

I had a page that (after doing some ad blocking) was reasonably well targeted. I checked it last night and the ads weren't that bad. Mostly on target.

When I checked the same page this morning, the targeting was all over the place. Most of the ads were WAY off target, from furniture to horse breeding to financial services. This is despite my "helping" them target by providing a cateory and subcategory for the page.

So if a page is OK today, you have to check it every day to see if the targeting has shifted. Not that there's a lot you can do if it has except for putting AdSense on the page instead. On the same page AdSense provides well targeted ads that convert better, so I'd like Yahoo to tell me why I should be running Yahoo ads there?

I'm giving it a try, but Yahoo aren't making it easy for me. I'd really like to see a good alternative to AdSense since I'd really like to diversify against the day when AdSense starts to suck really badly (it's heading that way with ever lower payment per click).