Or so it seems.
I’ve been tracking this for the past few weeks, a little cynical that what I was hearing was in fact true.
Anyhow, word on the street is that Yahoo are not renewing the direct deals with partners where their overall traffic quality score is less than 7 out of 10. Regardless of income generated. Seemingly this get tough approach has been trialed in the Australian market and is now being rolled out across the rest of the network.
What does this tell us? Well, seemingly that whilst the MS/Y! steam roller continues unabated, come launch day, the traffic on the network they want to be clean. As shocking as this might sound on face value, word is that this does not affect those partners with syndication rights – a la the parking companies and the ad networks. Who does it affect then? Again, Im not stating my life on the news at this stage but accordingly, partners without syndication deals, large domainer networks and arbitrage clients are the ones apparently feeling the heat. TQ less than 7/10 and no renewal.
Where do these people then go? Well, either out of the network completely or over to a syndication partner where Y! knows there is no term contract and feeds can be pulled with just a few keystrokes in an email.
Sounds great for the networks and the parking companies fed by Yahoo but, as ever, Im remaining cynical about this as well. Im willing to bet a few schekles that all of the partner network will have be cleaned in some way come the time it all goes Bing… or might that be Bang?
[...] [...]
Thanks for sharing your knowledge Julia.
I think this really is the end of parking as we have always known it. The remaining guys and gals with a TQ of 7 or better will probably still get paid very poorly. Initial reports are suggesting this.
[...] has been reported by two blogs today, Domain Name Wire and Julia Mackenzie, Yahoo’s search marketing division is going through some changes that are likely to affect [...]
[...] has been reported by two blogs today, Domain Name Wire and Julia Mackenzie, Yahoo’s search marketing division is going through some changes that are likely to affect [...]
I don’t understand what you mean? Parking companies do have contracts…
There is no “abitrage partners”. They have 3 types of partners: content, search, and domain. I am thinking you are speaking of the strategic content/search partners, which could be doing arbitrage on these feeds.
@Matt
Perhaps my writing on the fly hasnt completely given it to you in the correct context.
I was trying to convey the current problem lies with the partners who have a direct deal with Y! without the syndication element – therefore domainers with a direct deal, those using search match for their own sites, the content match guys etc etc..
In other words, those who dont syndicate their feed like domain parking providers and/or ad networks and have a TQ score of 7 or less.
And just for clarifications sake, there are also more feeds available from Y! such as “error match”
Ah I see. I understand now. So, do you know why they are cutting out direct partners and not syndication partners? Is it because of volume?
It would seem illogical to me. What Google did last few years is cut out syndication partners and keep the direct. This would be the exact opposite, and makes little sense to me.
Also, the bar for these “syndication”/domain parking partners seems to be very low from what I hear. A TQ of 3 or above is acceptable, is that still the case? That is just insane. I don’t understand why they do this.
Is it me, or is Yahoo stupid?
We can always count on Julia to ruin a weekend.
I guess we shouldn’t shoot the messenger, Debbie Downer.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/19280/saturday-night-live-debbie-downer-birthday-party
Julia, actually, I have thought about this and figured it out. I think you heard the correct information, but you got it wrong.
Domain parking companies should NOT have the right to syndicate, unless there is something I don’t know. Displaying ads on client parked domain names and syndicating is two different things.
The only big companies that can syndicate are Lycos and InfoSpace. That means they can syndicate an XML feed to a different partner. I think those are not affected because their overall TQ score is above 7, and their individual small syndicated partners can have below 7, as that gets averaged in and the overall score still will be above 7 due to the size of these 2 colasso partners.
Domain parking companies that I know do NOT have any rights to syndicate ads. This is a big no-no.
I think this is what you have heard. Displaying ads on parked domains is NOT a form of syndication.
Yahoo have been bashing their partners with a big stick over TQ the last 18 months. The stick has always been there but recently it just seems to hurt more. Yahoo doesn’t realise that this will be more than counter-productive in the end, their partners may even end up terminating them rather than vice versa! There maybe little loyalty in business but in Yahoo land it has all but evaporated. Perhaps they don’t care, or not right now anyway.
Using TQ score they are savaging their short term revenue, losing tens of millions in the hope that the longer term shows promise. In doing so they are taking apart what was once one of the most monetisable products on the web. Now this doesn’t mean that they should just have let bid prices and advertiser satisfaction collapse (Miva anyone) but the the TQ system is a fatally flawed solution to the quality problem. It is also a system that even many account managers (when they are not busy bashing partners) don’t appear to fully understand and the non transparent nature makes it akin to hitting a moving target for many a publisher.
Regardless of individual publisher TQ the inherent and imho fatal flaw is in the instability it introduces to the entire revenue model however you source traffic. I am not surprised direct publishers and even larger syndicators have sleepless nights, you can’t safely build a business around a volatile TQ number and base your revenue around a system that you cannot absolutely control. There are people deep within Yahoo that acknowledge TQ has issues but you will struggle to find such support from anyone on the business account side, they either don’t fully understand it and/or just toe the company line.
So where does this leave larger publishers? I think more will view Yahoo search as a sinking ship and strip it dry while they can, others will struggle on as its all they have in the hope they can survive but smaller direct partners will virtually dry up or seek superior revenue share with resellers (this is already happening.) A smaller number will find ways to make the TQ grade and remain moderately successful. Many though will take a dive into the rapidly filling trash can occupied by partners that have been totally wiped off the map.
Best advice if you are getting started in this game is to ensure your company does not depend on Yahoo for its survival. If you are already in the game then you should start reaching out towards more stable revenue streams, though easier said than done if you haven’t seen the writing on the wall and planned ahead.