Why you should be cautious with Yahoo Search Marketing Partners

This week I've been down, feeling I was just another Yahoo Paid Search newbie.

That deserves an explanation.

Monday: I get a call from one of my customers, who had bought sponsored links directly to an affiliate website. In the same box on the website, there were also some of our Yahoo ads (you could tell with the tracked URLs) served by Search123.

Quite funny when you think about it: Yahoo had stopped its Content Match offer since March 09 in Europe.

Calling Yahoo to get an explanation, I was told these ads were distributed through their Search Partners network from which you can't opt out. Nice!

One sentence struck me : "We occasionnaly fetch ads in the search feed to distribute them through our Search Partners network, but we do remain a Search Network you can trust".

Trust ? Hmmm, I'm not comfortable with that for now.

Insisting a bit, they told me that :

1. "You can opt out of any Search Partner by excluding it in your account"

2. "We don't give out our Search Partners list"

Very useful !

So I started investigating. There's a whole litterature that has spread online, so here are the most interesting links I could come up with:

• The Secret Yahoo Doesn't Want You To Know - http://www.whizclick.com/2009/03/25/the-secret-yahoo-doesnt-want-you-to-know/
• More Than Half Of Yahoo's Paid Search Clicks Come From Partners (Efficient Frontier Study) - http://searchengineland.com/more-than-half-of-yahoos-paid-search-clicks-come-from-partners-13983
• [Forum] Are these sites really part of the Sponsored search network? - http://www.webmasterworld.com/yahoo_search_marketing_overture_ppc/3231796.htm
• [Forum] Yahoo "sponsored search" ads going to link-only sites - http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=18336
• Let’s Make a Deal to Find and Exclude as many Yahoo Distribution Partner Domains as Possible - http://blog.search-mojo.com/2008/06/17/lets-make-a-deal-to-find-and-exclude-as-many-yahoo-distribution-partner-domains-as-possible/

I was then convinced I had to check on that, at least.

So I set up additional Google Analytics profiles for all of my websites with incoming traffic from Yahoo Paid Search, in order to check all referers. The process is quite simple, you just have to set up some filters :

• Include only traffic from source "yahoo"
• Include only traffic from medium "cpc"
• Advanced filter : Append Source field with Referer URL
  

You can refer to http://www.ga-experts.com/blog/2006/11/how-to-assess-search-content-network-advertising-using-google-analytics/ (screenshots included).

What I've found out is just stunning: 65% of my overall Yahoo Paid Search traffic comes from partners, with domain names suggesting a very small percentage of them is qualified. Performances just speak for themselves: 5 times less pageviews than pure Yahoo Search, 2 times less time spent on website... this is wasted money!

Do Yahoo really fetches ads "occasionnaly" ? Can you really "trust" them for being a "Search Network" ? I don't think so anymore. What I trust are accountable facts and figures, and I urge everyone here to set up profiles to check on that.