Yahoo! Search Marketing

Do you have questions about changes in your traffic patterns? The information below may help provide some answers and insights.

What if I see a spike or unexpected increase in clicks or impressions?

Please keep in mind that it is normal for click or impression volume to fluctuate in many keyword markets based on a variety of market conditions or changes to your campaign or account. A spike in impressions or clicks can happen for a number of reasons, including:

A change in ad rank
A change to the match types of your ads
Keyword seasonality
A new distribution partner was added to our network
Y! Buzz placement, where searches on certain popular keywords can be performed directly from the page content.
Y! Front Page placement where searches on certain popular keywords can be performed directly from the page content

Yahoo!'s proprietary Click Protection System, which is comprised of a complex series of filters, works 24 hours a day to identify click fraud and/or invalid clicks. We believe these types of clicks shouldn't be billed to our advertisers. So rest assured we're monitoring your traffic constantly.

What can I do about these traffic spikes?

Set a maximum budget to help prevent unexpected budget blowouts.
Submit a click investigation request or contact our support team if a traffic spike does not seem to fall into one of the categories above and you have further questions

Will my ad quality be impacted by impression spikes for my ad?

We understand that the marketplace is dynamic, and that the number of impressions that your ad receives on a given day can vary widely. We try to take unusual patterns of impressions, along with a number of other factors, into account when we calculate your ad quality.

What if I see a decline in conversions/ROI?

We suggest checking the following:

Did your ad quality scores decline? A lower score could indicate that a change to your creative led to fewer clicks.
Are you using Yahoo!'s conversion-only analytics or another third-party analytics product? These tools can help you identify what traffic may not be meeting your conversion goals.

What can I do about a decline in conversions/ROI?

If there are specific domains or geographic locations that aren't performing well for your campaign, consider using Blocked Domains, Blocked Continents, or geo-targeting tools.
Consider reallocating your bids to higher performing keywords.
Consider updating your creative.

What if I see suspicious activity in my web logs or reports from third-party analytics providers?

Our Click Protection System is designed to identify click fraud and/or invalid clicks that we believe should not be billed to you. Although you aren't charged for the clicks, they will still appear in your web server logs and third-party reports.

We suggest you have Tracking URLs enabled and verify that the activity you have questions about is coming from Yahoo! or its distribution partners.
Use the Click Filter Report to find the total number of clicks you received and the percentage of clicks our Click Protection System filtered

If you still have questions or would like us to conduct an investigation into your account, please use the click investigation request form below.

What if I am billed for more clicks than actually appear in my web logs or third-party reports?

We suggest checking to see if:

You have Tracking URLs activated. This will help you identify traffic from Yahoo!'s publisher sites, not just traffic from yahoo.com.

What can I do about this?

If you still see a significant difference between billed and logged clicks, add a no cache directive to your web page. This will help ensure each visitor pings your web server instead of retrieving a cached copy of your site.
If you are using Tracking URLs and added a no cache directive to your site and you still see a significant difference between billed and logged clicks, please contact us at 866-924-6676 so that we may investigate the issue further.

What if I am seeing traffic from domains I blocked?

We suggest the following:

Check to see if you entered the domains you wish to block correctly in your account.
If you want to block a domain and all of its sub-domains (e.g. www.example.com, and (www.sports.example.com), you should enter the domain without the "www" ("example.com")
If you only want to block traffic from a very specific sub-domain (e.g. sports.example.com), add the www ("www.sports.example.com").

What can I do about this?

If you've entered the domains in your account correctly and you are still receiving traffic from a blocked domain, please submit a click investigation request below.

NOTE: you can only block 500 domains per account, and you cannot block traffic from a Yahoo! domain.

If you have more questions, please use the form below to submit a click investigation request or contact our support team.

Click Investigation Request