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Thanks for your feedback and for everybody chiming in, too.
We posted some articles on the YSM Blog about ad quality and shared some tips on how to improve it.
[ysmblog.com...]
[ysmblog.com...]
Hope this helps,
YahooPete
I think it's fantastic that you're here posting back to us, but in this case, it's my opinion that you've missed the point of the earlier posts in this thread.
I hope others chime in with their thoughts on it all, taking advantage of having you here is my goal. I think others can help me do that, to point out to you, the best direction on this issue for us all.
From the "domain match" program, to their search partners, to the recent TOS changes, to their customer service... YSM is being driven into the ground. I have watched conversion rates nose-dive while being given less and less control over where the ads I'm paying for are shown. This strategy of theirs is looting -- nothing more. It's a shame, too, because I've worked with and spoken to some great, motivated, talented people at Yahoo/YSM. But someone way above them has a maladjusted set of priorities.
I have yet to hear one YSM rep, online or over the phone, justify why advertisers can't click a checkbox that will only allow their ads to show on Yahoo or Yahoo-owned search engines. And it's not the fault of YahooPete or any other YSM rep. Pete has come to my aid in the past, as have other YSM team members.
Theirs is the unfortunate role of taking flack and explaining away a policy they did not create.
The policy is simply indefensible.
Called back several times over the next few weeks, never received any proactive updates from YSM, and actually had my complaint laughed at by one of the reps. Final outcome?
Single-digit dollar amount refund. AND I'm still getting traffic from both domains, although I've been asked to trust that they just won't be billing me for it or for any of the traffic I received during their investigation.
Several months ago I blocked 2 domains. Noticed after a while that I was still getting YSM traffic from them, so I called and asked them to investigate.
Called back several times over the next few weeks, never received any proactive updates from YSM, and actually had my complaint laughed at by one of the reps. Final outcome?Single-digit dollar amount refund. AND I'm still getting traffic from both domains, although I've been asked to trust that they just won't be billing me for it or for any of the traffic I received during their investigation.
What is most likely happening is that the traffic you are getting from those domains are not the ones that are actually sending you the traffic.
Yahoo! basically allows their search partners to give out their feed to anyone with an internet connection. So lets say you have domainA.com that goes to Yahoo! and gets a search feed. Well domainA.com is going to give their feed out to everyone they can and take a cut. domainB.com is a domain that gets the feed from domainA.com. They display your ads on their site but redirect every click through domainA.com.
So in your stats it is looking like you are getting traffic from domainA.com, while in reality you are getting it from domainB.com. It's just the fact they run a redirect means you can't figure out what sites are actually displaying your ads.
It's a bug in their system of sorts. The blocked domain feature seems to only work on the displaying of the ads, not on the actual clickthrough. So if domainB.com is not in your blocked list (which it wouldn't since you have no idea they are the real ones sending the traffic), your ads show. It will also charge you for the click.
The issue also isn't new to Yahoo!. I, along with many others in PPC reported it and have spoken to people at Yahoo! (the issue was also passed on at last year's Pubcon). After reporting it, I even received a couple phone calls from someone on Yahoo!'s technical team who was very interested in what we had found. We were able to demonstrate the problem and give real examples. I did get a follow-up e-mail weeks later saying the issue was fixed for my account.
Not saying that your problem is this, but it sounds awfully familiar. Would the primary offending domain be a smaller parked domain service with extensive ties to click fraud overseas by chance?
Make sure you exclude bad domains, make sure you use alt text, update ad copy frequently and bid for roi...
