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January 25, 2007
Yahoo!'s New Ranking Model
Finally the Yahoo! Search Marketing upgrade has brought some well-needed changes to their Sponsored Search program with its new ranking model. This revised model will help advertisers spend much less time on bidding wars, leaving time to create more relevant ads. It is replacing the current method for ad ranking which is based on bid amounts alone.
Beginning February 5, 2007 bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad's rank in the search results. What exactly determines 'ad quality'? Well, there are two factors to this new feature-one being the ad's historical performance which consists of the click-through rate in comparison to that of the competitor's and the normal click-through rate for that position.
The second factor is the ad's expected performance which consists of a variety of relevance factors that Yahoo!'s ranking algorithms determine. Sounds like Yahoo! Search Marketing is attempting to come up to speed with Google.
One of the coolest features on the new Yahoo! Interface that will help you with the new ranking model is that you can determine the ad quality by a graphical feature called the quality index displayed in the campaigns tab.
Also, another important feature of the upgrade to remember is that Standard match type ads no longer receive priority placement over Advanced match type ads. Standard match type ads appear for exact matches, singular variations, plural variations and common misspellings of the keyword. Advanced match type ads appear for variations of the keyword, plurals and misspellings. This change may cause advertisers utilizing both match types to have higher traffic volume and see an increase in click charges.
Hopefully the new ranking system will end the frustration of poorly-written ads placing higher than your clever, more-relevant ad and end bidding wars!
