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Jen has spotted what we’ve all been expecting to see – Yahoo Publisher Network RSS ads. She writes:
‘The ads are delivered as images and seem to have an autogenerated script of some sort as it contains start and end tags in the RSS code.’
She has screen caps of them here.
Jen has news of a new feature on the Yahoo Publishers Network – ad category targeting - which allows publishers to assign categories of ads to their website. Publishers can choose two categories of ads to target per website/page/directory. This doesn’t mean contextual ads won’t be served – rather YPN explains:
‘Your ad category selections, in combination with our matching technology, will determine what types of ads will be displayed. Selecting ad categories for a Targeted URL, however, does not guarantee that only ads from those ad categories will appear.’
There are 20 categories with 134 sub categories to choose from (they seem open to suggestions for new categories).
This is a distinct feature of YPN and is very attractive to bloggers targeting niche topics. While I don’t know all the details of how to implement it as I’m not in the beta test still (not unless I’m willing to move continents) I can see some great possibilities with this. For example being able to target different categories on your blog would definitely be handy!
I’ll be interested to see what Google comes up with in this area. They already have the ability to target specific sections of your page for making your ads more contextual – but I’m pretty sure from talking to a few other publishers that they are also testing something similar to this feature. Time will tell.
There is more information on YPN’s category targeting at the YPN FAQ page.
Here’s another comparison (found at WMW) of Yahoo’s Publishing Network (YPN) and Adsense by someone rotating both on their site (ie every second impression would be getting one or the other ads):
‘I run Adsense and YPN on the homepage of my main site interchangeably to test which is better (equal pageviews at the end of the day, same weights). Both ad networks are both on target, although Adsense ads show more “less sophisticated” adverts (no brand name, mostly mom and pop operations); while YPN shows brand names. Google’s Adsense gives me double digit CTR, while YPN only gives me 1/10 of Adsense’s CTR. At the end of the day, even if YPN gives me higher earnings per click, Google gives me better revenues. It seems that G’s targeting is designed to show what ads fit the page AND what ads are most likely to get click (probably due to some historical data of my target audience or whatnot). On the other hand, YPN only shows what ads can possibly be targeted to the content, but not really designed to generate high click thrus.’
I’ve seen this type of comparison numerous times now – its always the same. Google gets higher CTR, YPN gets high click values. The difference between comparisons though is that for some the lower CTR and higher values of YPN actually turn out to put publishers in a better off position than Adsense. I guess it depends on a number of factors – including the topic of the blog, the positioning of ads etc.
Found via SE Round Table
Speaking of Creative Weblogging - in writing the last post I decided to take a wander through their network – which has been redesigned in the past few months (boy did it need it). It’s scrubbed up ok – but I can’t help but notice that they are running Google Adsense Ads and Yahoo Publishing Network Ads on the same page on every blog that they own.
This is in direct violation of both Adsense and YPN’s TOS and I’d recommend they make up their mind and just use one system before getting themselves banned from one or both.
I’ve tried to email them to let them know of the violation but for some reason my email bounced – if somoene knows the guys behind it you might want to let them know that they are flirting with danger.
Jen has a very interesting post comparing Adsense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network ads on her Women’s Finance blog. It’s well worth a read as it reveals that both YPN and Adsense have some clear advantages over one another.
If it’s high click values that you’re after it seems that YPN is your best bet – however if it’s CTR, ePCM or ad relevancy you’ll probably lean toward Adsense. Of course it’s very early days for YPN – without a doubt they’ll be working on issues of relevancy and CTR – if they can it could be well worth the switch when they come out of beta.
Check out her full post for all the details.
In related news – I’ve noticed that in the last few days quite a few bloggers have been accepted into the YPN beta test. It looks like they’ve opened things up to a second round of testers which is a sign that it is a step closer to full release. Still no non North American testers though as far as I can see.
A reader just emailed me to let me know that he’d been accepted into Yahoo’s Publishing Network as a beta tester but that he’d noticed a rather odd clause in the agreement that he had to enter into. The section in question reads:
‘you are a US-based business and you are operating Your Site solely for viewing and use by users within the US; and
…
display all or part of the Ad Unit to any user located outside the US;’
I knew Yahoo were only accepting US publishers into the beta test – but to limit them to only show ads to US readers is news to me and rather impractical. I know that I’ve seen quite a few sites with YPN ads (I’m in Australia) so either a lot of beta testers are breaking this agreement or YPN have made some sort of a mistake with the clause.
Strange.
There is a good, 5 question interview over at Search Views with David Zito of Yahoo’s Publisher Network where he talks a little about YPN’s beta test. The last question has be a little curious:
’5. You were recently quoted in the WSJ as saying that Yahoo will eventually provide content and ads to YPN partner sites. Can you tell us anything more?
I wish I could tell you more but our PR team would not be happy with me. What I can say is that Yahoo! is the only portal that offers such a broad array of content like – shopping, travel, music, reviews, video feeds, etc. We are excited about the opportunity to offer publishers access to this type of content, which in turn will make for a more compelling user experience for their users. I’ll be sure to let you know when we do start to offer these things.’
Yahoo will provide content to partner publishers as well as the ads to go on them…. wonder if he’s talking about offering their RSS feeds on other sites – or something else…
How does the Yahoo Publisher Network compare to Adsense? This is the question on many bloggers lips – especially those who are not in the US and are excluded from the beta test. Those in this boat are watching beta testers carefully for any hints – most of which seem pretty positive.
Jen reported a few days back that YPN was doing better than Adsense was for her and today Paul Scrivens reports that he’s switching all of his sites over to YPN after massive improvements on one of his blogs after making the switch. He reports the following increases:
‘* August: 1112% of Google
* July-August: 189% of Google
* June-August: 80% of Google
* May-August: 56% of GoogleWhat this means is that I have seen a 1112% increase in revenues for this month using Yahoo over this month’s Google. 189% just for the ten days of Yahoo in comparison to the whole month of July and part of August combined for Google!!!!’
Wow. If I was seeing improvements of between 56% and 1112% I’d be moving my sites over too.
Ok Yahoo! – I think its time to let some of us non US bods in on the act!
If you’re online right now with nothing to do you might like to log onto Webmaster Radio to hear Jen from Jensense.com Talking YPN & AdSense. Listen to the live radio feed and jump into the online chat room – I’m there now.
Update: It’s all over and it was fun. I’ll include a few titbits from her talking about the Yahoo Publishing Network (YPN).
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My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like Digital Photography School and TwiTip - Twitter Tips.
In 2002 I stumbled upon an article about ‘Blogging’. I didn’t know it at the time but that moment changed my life. Read more about Darren or contact him. Connect with me on Twitter at , Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.
