Yahoo! Ad Ranking To Change On Feb 5, 2007 In USA

January 24th, 2007

Yahoo! Search Marketing sent out an email today to all advertisers in the USA to inform them about the upcoming change in the way Yahoo! will rank sponsored ads. The text of this email is as follows:

Bid Amount and Ad Quality will Determine an Ad Rank in Search Results Beginning February 5, 2007 in the U.S.

With new features like ad testing, geo-targeting and fast ad activation, the new Sponsored Search system gives you more ways to connect with customers searching for what you sell.

On February 5, 2007, we are introducing a new ranking model in the U.S. that considers ad quality and bid amount. The new model is designed to help you spend less time in bidding wars and more time creating the most relevant, effective ads, which can help drive better results for your business.

Here is a quick summary of this important change:

Both bid amount and ad quality will determine the ad rank in search results beginning February 5, 2007.
This will replace the current method, in which ads in search results are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position).
This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the quality of your ads.
By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and/or a lower cost for your ads.

Example of How Ads May be Ranked
The graphic below helps illustrate a scenario that may result from this change:

>Note: The graphic above is provided for illustrative purposes only, and will not actually appear in your account.

What is Ad Quality?

Ad quality is determined by:

The historical performance - its click-through rate relative to competitors and normalized for position.
The expected performance - determined by various relevance factors considered by the Yahoo! ranking algorithms, relative to other ads displayed at the same time.

Overall ad quality is displayed in graphical form by the quality index.

Other Important Things to Know

We recommend that you review your current max bids. Keep in mind you may be charged up to this amount.
Standard match type ads will no longer receive priority placement over Advanced match type ads.
Fewer Sponsored Search results may now appear at the very top of the page for certain search terms.

Once you have upgraded to the new Sponsored Search system, you will be able to gain an understanding of your overall ad quality by looking at its quality index. If you would like to upgrade now, please submit your request to our Online Reservation Page, and we will try to accommodate your request.

To learn more about the quality index, the new approach to ad ranking and helpful tips, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/start/overview_newadrank.html.

Tags: accuracast, search, news

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One Response to “Yahoo! Ad Ranking To Change On Feb 5, 2007 In USA”

Yahoo! Search Marketing UK Updates Ranking System | Search Daily News Says:
July 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
[…] Once you’ve upgraded to the new Sponsored Search system, you’ll be able to gain an understanding of your ad’s overall quality by looking at its quality index. To learn more about the quality index, the new approach to ad ranking and helpful tips, please click here. […]