New Yahoo Ranking Model Forecasting Note
Yahoo New Ranking Model Follow-up Info -
Estimated Clicks per Bid forecasting tool transition (start-over)
With the new model Yahoo is starting the bid placement forecasting tools from scratch in the Yahoo! Search Marketing interface. What this basically means is that the big push they have offered people to get the ad history up and live before Feb 5th, basically starts over today anyway. Or thats what it appears to me, and true for at least some of their account tools.
Important Note on Forecasting
On February 5, we began a seven- to ten-day transition period during which the “Estimated Clicks per Bid” forecasting tool will begin to accumulate data from the new ranking model, after which you can have greater confidence in using this tool. During this period, please use the "Bid Range for Top Positions" information to help guide your bidding decisions. Learn more about the forecasting tools.
Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo Panama, Yahoo Search Marketing, Panama, Search Marketing, Paid Search, Ironvine
New Yahoo Ranking Model Launches Today 2-5-07
Today the expected new ranking model was launched by Yahoo! Search Marketing (Feb. 5, 2007). As I have talked about in previous posts (Yahoo Search Marketing Upgrade News, Upcoming Changes to Paid Search) the effects of this still have some mystery. Will ad costs go up, down, improve or worsen rankings.
I think my biggest concern right now with Yahoo is their editorial process and requirements. I actually have an email into them right now asking about exactly how strict they are and how to deal with certain issues, like not having the exact keyword or majority of the keyword phrase displayed on the landing page, why they require that you have brand terms in the ad title and description(??), how they expect us to manage, move and change keywords, ads, and adgroups without using the spreadsheet (which is very difficult to set up or manipulate existing keywords).
My guess is that they drew the line on their editorial process to be able to use the ranking model and make it look like an immediate success with strictly functioning ads, not the best performing ones. The usability right now for Yahoo, and the performance vs Google(usability and performance) and even MSN (performance) is pretty low with the new Panama release.
**They need to give advertisers some tools to be able to manage an account before they start mass killing or restricting or modifying keywords, ads, or adgroups.
The advertiser mail notification is posted below.
New Ranking Model Launches Today, February 5, 2007
We're excited to announce that the new ranking model has launched
today, February 5, 2007, in our U.S. market. The new ranking model is
designed to improve user results through higher quality search ads.
When users engage with these higher quality search ads, advertisers
will receive more interested, valuable potential customers, helping
to drive better results for your business.As we previously announced, both bid amount and ad quality
now
determine an ad's rank in search results.
Your bid is the maximum amount that you're willing to pay when your
ad is clicked. You will never be charged more than this amount.Your ad's quality is determined by:
- The ad's historical performance—determined by its click-through
rate relative to its position on the page.- The ad's expected performance, relative to competing ads displayed
at the same time—determined by various relevance factors considered
by Yahoo!'s ranking algorithms.You can gain an understanding of an ad's quality by looking at its
quality index.Example of How Ads may be Ranked
The graphic below helps illustrate a scenario that may result from
this change:
Learn more about the new ranking model. Learn more about the quality index.
Five Things to do to Take Advantage of the New Ranking Model
To take advantage of the new ranking model, you should:
- Include keywords in your ads (use our Insert Keyword feature).
- Choose keywords for each ad group carefully.
- Use ad testing.
- Use Excluded Words to optimize your Advanced match type ads.
- Review your current bids and set a campaign budget to meet your
business goals.For more details, please click here.
Important Note on Forecasting
Starting today, February 5, with the roll-out of the new ranking
model, we will offer several tools to use in making bidding
decisions. However, there will be a seven- to ten-day transition
period during which the "Estimated Clicks per Bid" forecasting tool
will begin to accumulate data from the new ranking model in order to
provide more recent historical traffic estimates. After these seven
to ten days, you can have greater confidence in using this tool. In
the meantime, we recommend that you use the "Bid Range for Top
Positions" information to help guide your bidding decisions.
~Steve
Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo Panama, Yahoo Search Marketing, Search Marketing, Paid Search, Online Advertising, SEM, Panama, Ironvine
Google’s Going Personal
Today brings us some Google news. They have enabled or rolled out a new procedure on personalized searches. If you have a Google account, (Gmail, etc.) then now, by default you will see personalized Google results.
In general this is probably a safe move for Google to do, most people want or will use a more focused search result. As a search marketer that could actually hurt you and confuse your clients. They could end up seeing their results as a far different ranking than what the natural really is. It will just depend on their computer/Google settings.
You should make sure that you have the personalized search turned off if you want to get true ranking results.
Here is the official word from the Google Blog:
Google's goal has always been to give you exactly the information you want right when you want it. With the growth of the Internet and all the new information coming online every day, this might sound hard.
We're constantly trying to improve the quality of your search results. One of the ways we're tackling this is by personalizing your search experience. After all, you're the only one who actually knows what you're really looking for.
We have two main ways of personalizing your Google experience. First, you can customize products and services like the Google Personalized Homepage. Personalizing your homepage gives you the at-a-glance information that you care about—such as your latest Gmail messages, news headlines, or to-do list—right at your fingertips, just the way you want it.
Second, we offer automatic personalization through things like personalized search and recommendations. Our goal with these types of technologies is to make your Google search experience better based on what we know about your preferences, without you having to do any extra work.
Today, we're taking another step toward making personalization more available to you by combining these two into a single signed-in experience. Now, when you're signed in, you'll have access to a personalized Google—one that combines personalized search results and a personalized homepage.
Keep in mind that personalization is subtle—at first you may not notice any difference. But over time, as the search engine learns your preferences, you'll see it. For example, I (Sep) am an avid Miami Dolphins fan (no joke). Searching for [dolphins] gives me info about my favorite football team, while a marine biologist colleague gets more information about her salt-water friends.
If you don't want to see personalized results, just sign out of your Google Account. After all, the goal is to give you what you want when you want it. So give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
Labels: personalization, Personalized Homepage
Technorati Tags: Google, Search, Search Marketing, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Blog, Ironvine, Personalized Search
Customize the Columns in Your AdWords Account
On the Inside AdWords blog is the latest about some fun new features available in your AdWords account. You can now use Customizable Columns to choose the columns you would like to view, or not view. Basically it's a feature that lets you hide and unhide columns. Here is the post and a picture example.
Are there certain statistics in your account that you don't need to see each time you log in? Now, you can use our Customizable Columns feature to choose the columns you'd like to view. Simply select the new 'Customize Columns' link from the Campaign Summary, Campaign Detail, and/or Ad Group Detail page, and indicate which column you'd like to hide. The column selected will immediately stop showing and will remain hidden until you choose to unhide it.
And, if you decide that you'd like to view this column again in the future, simply select the 'Customize Columns' link again and choose to unhide the column. Check it out below.
Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew
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Posted by Inside AdWords crew to Inside AdWords at 1/30/2007 06:48:00 PM
Technorati Tags: Google, Google AdWords, AdWords, Search Marketing, Online Marketing, Paid Search, PPC, Ironvine
Yahoo Search Marketing Upgrade News
Here is the latest news about the new ranking model in Yahoo! Search Marketing. They sent out a letter to advertisers with the 5 Key Steps to Take Advantage of the New Ranking Model. You can see my previous comments and opinions about the new model in the post "Upcoming Changes to Paid Search".
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We previously announced that on February 5, 2007, we are introducing a new ranking model in the U.S. that considers both an ad's quality and bid amount in determining an ad's position in search results. It is designed to help you spend less time in bidding wars and more time creating the most relevant, effective ads, which may help drive better results for your business.
To take advantage of our new ranking model, please do the following:
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To learn more about the new ranking model, please click here.
Sincerely,
Your Partners at Yahoo Search Marketing
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Technorati Tags: Yahoo!, Yahoo Search Marketing, Search Marketing, Paid Search, Online Marketing, Search, Ironvine
Back From NY & Pains of Yahoo Editorial
I'm back today after a 3 day business trip to New York. My first time there, unfortunately didn't get to see much, but got a few good pictures.
Anyhow, there will be a few posts coming up that I have been thinking on and saving up to dish out upon my return.
In this post I wanted to pick on the Yahoo Panama editorial process a little.
First of all I do admit that it is much better than it was pre-Panama, and is still better than MSN. I do find things pretty painful with it still however. Today, as an example, I added about 1000 keywords to an account on Yahoo. Now for whatever reason, the client's site was being really slow around the same time. So I ended up having about 75 keywords get Declined in the editorial because the pages were taking too long to load. The landing pages do actually work...
Now what do I do? Well I could resubmit them via the bulk, but then I would have to either do the whole sheet again, or one by one pull out the ones that got Declined.
It seems to happen a lot, the pages work but Yahoo isn't able to spider them for some unknown reason at that time. This isn't the first or I'm sure the last time I will have issues with the editorial process.
Lots of times it just seems like Yahoo kills keywords for no apparent reason, I'm guessing its because of their spider.
What I would suggest to Yahoo is to add a delay to flagged keywords, but make them active and marked "Pending". If the spider fails the first time, put it in a 12 or 24 hour queue before you try again and then kill it. That will, or should, give 2 chances for the editorial spider to test a landing page, but not axe it right off the bat.
Technorati Tags: New York, Yahoo, Yahoo Panama, Yahoo Search Marketing, Paid Search, Online Marketing, Keywords, Keyword Creation, Ironvine