We want to update you on two changes coming your way:

1. Short descriptions will be required when you create or modify an ad, beginning in May 2007.
Long descriptions will be optional. Currently, you have two options for your ad descriptions: long (up to 190 characters) and short (70 characters or fewer).

2. Yahoo! Search results will only show short descriptions beginning in June 2007.
If you only use long descriptions, your ad will be automatically cut off to fit within the 70-character limit, which may impact your ability to communicate valuable information to users and your results. We recommend that you create a short description for any existing ad to guarantee that your most important information is included.

In the example below, key messages, such as competitive pricing and free shipping, are not included in the “cut-off” ad:

Why are we making this change?
We’ve found that ads written more concisely give users a better experience and generally get better results. Users are exposed to higher quality search ads and advertisers may attract more interested and enthusiastic potential customers. So don’t wait until June?start now.

I already despise the Google Quality Score for its lack of transparency as I believe its a way for Google to hike up bid prices. Well, apparently Yahoo thought it was a good idea because starting Feb. 5th paid search ads will be ranked using an “Ad Quality” ranking.

According to the email Yahoo sent: Here’s a quick summary of this important change:

• Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad’s 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.

The email goes on to talk about how the Ad Quality will work

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

What is “Ad Quality”?
Ad quality is determined by:

1. The ad’s historical performance – its click-through rate relative to competitors and normalized for position.
2. The ad’s expected performance – determined by various relevance factors considered by Yahoo!’s 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. Learn More.
* Standard match type ads will no longer receive priority placement over Advanced match type ads. Learn More.
* Fewer Sponsored Search results may now appear at the very top of the page for certain search terms.

I have been putting off diving into the new Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) for a while now, mainly because my clients rank well in Yahoo. But mostly because I fear change. I have been working with the YSM console for over 3 years now and have become pretty familiar with the clunky interface and like any old dog that hangs around long enough you learn to love’em. Sure she shed, was unreliable and slow when fetching but I loved her transparency. I bid where I wanted to appear. There were no quality scores or unknown variables, just a straight, bid-to-position model. Oh how I miss those days.

Recently, I’ve started toying around with the pseudo-new Yahoo! interface and I feel like a blind man without my guide-dog. There are certain aspects I really can see myself liking and I can see how it would be extremely easy for a new person who has never started had a paid search account, in fact much easier than Google’s Adwords Starter Edition. But there are some aspects that leave me asking WTF were they thinking?

Now I could be completely wrong and just not have discovered the right answer but doing things like attempting to delete multiple campaigns at once is impossible. Instead I have to go into each campaign and manually deleted them one by one? Thats ridiculous. Also forcing an advanced user to walk through the 8+ steps needed to create a campaign is kind of annoying.

Needless to say, I will continue banging around and posting my thoughts and hopefully I’ll uncover a useful piece of info or two or at least find a new man’s best friend.

One of the best features in all of Yahoo Search Marketing was the keyword selector tool. It allowed us to get variations of words and phrases and would also provide us with data on these words. We were able to see monthly search volume, estimated CPC and the best part, the top bid for the #1 position. Well, that is no more. Yahoo’s recent change to a less transparent pricing strategy has taken this little gem away from us. While we are still given the search volume, they no longer give us the bid prices up front. If you use the tool like it is meant to be, eventually you will get to the end and will be given a estimated range for the words. Nice, but not nearly as handy as the bid price for words. First we lose our bulk sheet link in adwords, now this! These guys are just trying to make our job harder aren’t they?

Reports around the web are that Yahoo Search Marketing has unveiled its new platform codenamed Panama at the SES conference in San Jose. Yahoo hasn’t done any major upgrades since the acquisition of GoTo.com and has been using basically the same auction style bidding strategy since its inception. The higher you bid the higher your position, pretty simple stuff, but with Panama Yahoo plans to implement a more algorithmic style of bidding including factors like quality score and ROI. Sound familar? Well it should, it is a similar setup that Google and MSN use
which allows them to control the price of keywords (although they would never admit it).

One of the benefits of this new platform is the ability to target a variety of different channels. Yahoo isn’t only a search engine. It has a variety of sites and portals from Yahoo Trips to Yahoo Games and advertisers will be able to target each section. Also along the lines of better targeting, Yahoo says geo-targeting will be easier then ever with Panama. This much needed change was expected to be released by Q3 but Yahoo has stated numerous times that it will be available Q4.

Since I was not at SES to gather more info, I will point you to Search Engine Journal, who has a more indepth review complete with a few almost readable screenshots.