TOP STORY

New Ranking Model Set for Feb. 5 Intro

A new ranking model that will determine an ad's ranking in search results based on bid amount and ad quality will be launched on February 5, 2007, and is designed to reward strong, relevant, creative ads

On January 23, we announced that a new ranking model for our search marketing advertisers in the U.S. market will be launched on Monday, February 5. With this change, all Yahoo! Search Marketing ads in the U.S. market will be ranked by quality in addition to keyword bid price. The new ranking model is designed to provide you with more valuable customer leads, and provide users with a more relevant search experience.

As you know, since the introduction of our revolutionary pay-per-click search advertising product (going back to the GoTo and Overture days), search ads on Yahoo! and its distribution partner sites have been ranked solely by max bid--the higher the bid, the higher an ad appears within the search results. When the new ranking model goes into effect, both max bid and the ad's quality together will determine where an ad is ranked in search results. The quality of an ad will be determined by its historical performance and its expected performance relative to other ads displayed at the same time. So, ads of higher quality should generally receive better placement on the results page.

Win⁴
"By encouraging advertisers to focus on the quality of their ads, we can deliver a better search experience for all of our customers. Everybody wins," says Tim Cadogan, our vice president of search marketing. "We firmly believe that delivering more relevant ads to users will result in more quality leads to advertisers, invite even more participation in our network and ultimately create a more valuable marketplace for users, advertisers, publishers and Yahoo!."

With this change, we'll also provide you with industry-leading marketplace visibility and features that allow you to better understand your performance and make informed marketing decisions. Your fellow advertisers who have upgraded to the "Panama" system have already been gauging the quality of their ads by viewing the prominently displayed quality index within the application. You can also see an estimated average position and estimated forecast of clicks for your ad campaigns, which is based on budget allocation.

To take advantage of the new ranking model (and you have already upgraded to the "Panama" system), you should:

1. Include keywords in your ad (use our Insert Keyword feature).
2. Choose keywords for each ad group carefully.
3. Use ad testing.
4. Use our Excluded Keyword feature to optimize your Advanced match type.
5. Review your current bids and set a campaign budget to meet your business goals.

You can get more details here.

To take advantage of the new ranking model (and you have not yet upgraded), you should:

1. Include keywords in your ad.
2. Use our Excluded Keyword feature to optimize your Advanced match type.
3. Review your current bids and set a campaign budget to meet your business goals.

You can get more details here.

We will continue to send upgrade invitations to U.S. advertisers throughout Q1 2007, and we anticipate that all active U.S. advertisers will be upgraded to the new system by the end of this quarter. If you wish to schedule your upgrade as early as possible, you can make a request through the upgrade reservation page, and we will try to accommodate your request.

International Roll-Out
We are on schedule to also begin rolling out the new ad system in international markets in Q2 2007 on a market-by-market basis, starting with Japan. We will follow a similar process as in the U.S., in which we will introduce the interface first, followed by our new ranking model. We will be contacting our advertisers in each market with more specific information as their rollout dates approach.