Yahoo/MSN vs Google Pay-per-click
So here’s my rant about the state of the Pay-per-click marketing industry. First of all, let me mention what’s currently going on with pay-per-click and the search engines.
Google Adwords has been slapping affiliates around left right and center like helpless rag dolls, making it difficult for the untrained Internet marketer to place an ad in the search results. There are online reports that state Google has shut down over 80,000 Adwords accounts and this is still growing on a daily basis. I’ll get to the reason for this in a minute.
First though, lets chat about one of Google’s only paid search competitors (a viable one), Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM).
Over the years, Yahoo has never been able to take advantage of their Search engine to effectively compete with Google. One reason is that they don’t have the earning power Google does due to their lackluster pay-per-click framework/platform.
When I started out PPC’ marketing back in 2002, Yahoo’s search traffic was managed by a third party company, “Overture”. They ruled the net and were the “only” place to go to put ads online. Then along came Google Adwords and before long Overture was working in the shadows of Google.
Microsoft has tried to revive their poor search engine presence by releasing Bing (bing.com). Bing has actually started to gain some traction due to their heavy advertising and brand awareness, however people are moving back to Google as it is better choice for finding the information you want.. NOW!
Recently however, there has been a big mix-up in the world of Pay-per-click marketing. For Internet marketers this is a big thing.
Yahoo Search Marketing has recently partnered with Microsoft to manage all ads under one roof. The “Yahoo! & Microsoft search alliance” as they call it is going to shake up the search marketing industry yet again. This will equate to a much more powerful option.
I’ve been a Google supporter for years as they really do provide the highest quality traffic and conversions. That said, the inconsistencies of their regulations, sub par support, and wish-washy guidelines have made “other options” much more appealing.
Why is Google making it so difficult to place an ad in the search results? They have always had a vision that (and a good one) that delivering the best and most high quality websites to their searchers is key to their success. We all know that when you search for something in Google, you find what you’re looking for. This means that they need to monitor their paid advertisers to make sure they follow certain guidelines to deliver high quality and relevant sites.
This is great!
But…
Google had taken things a bit too far and does not seem to be following their policies at all times. Something that works for one person, may not get approved for another. For someone who is new to pay-per-click advertising this is very frustrating because you have absolutely no idea why your ads aren’t showing. In addition, your account at Google could get shut down with no prior warning. This is the stage of Adwords currently and is why so many people are having difficulty placing ads.
I’m all for quality…but let your advertisers know what “Quality” is. Let advertisers improve if they need to. Rather than slapping an advertiser in the face and telling them they can’t place an ad on the network, give them a chance to improve their ads, their websites and their offers.
What does this mean for you as an Internet marketer? It means that you need to play by Google’s rules and advertise in a way that puts you in their “good books”. If you’ve been slapped, or are having issues with Google, sometimes the only option is to look elsewhere for traffic and this is where BIG opportunity lies.
Starting in 2011, Yahoo Search marketing and MSN Adcenter are going to be under one roof, and this means access to 577 million web searchers world wide. Many PPC’ marketers already use Yahoo, and MSN Adcenter alongside their Google Adwords ads, but will this new alliance cause a swing in momentum?
Here’s my take..
Google is going to continue “peeving people off” by making it difficult to get an ad placed on their network. To be honest, it this continues too long, they are going to lose too much money and realize that their quarterly earnings are not what they could be. 97% of Google’s quarterly revenue derives from advertising!
Google is basically funneling Internet marketers from Adwords, straight into the hands of Yahoo and MSN. When the new search alliance is made public and you can manage a single advertising account to have your ads placed across the entire Yahoo and MSN networks, there is going to be division between which network to choose.
I like the new idea of only having to manage TWO Pay-per-click networks. Google on one hand, and Yahoo/MSN on the other. Let’s not get too excited though just yet. Google still offers the best PPC platform and they still rule the search engine market. What I’m saying is that having both Google, and the Yahoo/MSN alliance in your arsenal will extend your reach substantially.
…And having the added competition is going to make both Google and Yahoo more advertiser friendly.
I’m not going to take sides.. why would I? Is Adwords better than Yahoo Search Marketing?… um… yes. Is Adwords better than MSN Adcenter? Yes… Is Adwords going to be better than the new alliance? Yes.. Am I going to miss out on a massive chunk of daily searches by sticking to Google only? No…
There are no signs that Google is going to lose any traction in its hold on the search engine market, however it is already losing many of it’s Adwords advertisers to Yahoo and MSN. This merger will hopefully wake Google up and have them revert (or at least solidify) their unpredictable advertiser policies they are currently enforcing.
My bottom line is that The Yahoo and MSN search alliance is a small move in the right direction for PPC marketers. It won’t change the way we work online, but it could have an impact on where are advertising budgets go.
Until next time,
Carson
@leoarjuna
Google has taken a pretty strong stance against sites that have the full intention (and often times the only intention) of getting people to click on affiliate links. They seem to be a little less suspension happy with sites that offer mostly value and are lead driven sites (email marketing). There are still alternatives like MSN Adcenter and Facebook out there that you may want to consider for your PPC marketing campaigns.
I put an ad from a google account, and I’ve tried to click the ad itself, as a test, not long before my account is banned, why is it so easy its easy account banned?
@ Chad M.
CTR is much more than impressions. If you are getting lots of impressions, yet very few clicks, you will get slammed with a low QS. Google is in the business of making money and if you CTR is below 4%, they would rather move another advertiser up in your position and not have you there. Google gets paid more if their paid ads get clicked at a higher frequency.
The age of your site does not have the impact that you state on your Adwords account. What can happen though is that if your site has been promoted incorrectly in the past, Google can flag an entire site with a low QS…which does happen on occasion.
Kyle
Hi Kyle,
I appreciate your response, and I like the way you think. I did not clarify, and for that I apologize. I do have a multi page website for my moving client (it is a pretty new site, but has had 17 of it’s pages indexed on Google – and received almost immediate page rank.)
I created an additional page about “Denver moving companies” because according to analytics, webmaster tools, and adwords reports, the top keywords were “Denver movers,” “Movers in Denver,” and ” Denver moving companies.” However, even though the website is clearly about a moving company in Denver that does Corporate Relocations, International Moves, and Office/Industrial moves (I had chosen keywords in the original campaign related to these 3 sub categories and placed them in their own adgroups) Google was rewarding my top 3 keywords (based on impressions) with very low Quality Score.
Herein lies my frustration. The only factor I can see that could drive the quality score down is the age of the website and the relatively few clicks it has inevitably received to date.
I ask you, in your opinion, is this fair? In my opinion, absolutely not. What does the age of a website have to do with whether or not your ad in Google adwords is relevant to the keyword selected OR the landing page I chose within the website? I would think that Google could tweak the algorithm and truly determin if your ADS are relevant to the keywords chosen. Age of adwords account, how other adwords programs (I run several for different clients) are performing, and age of website are irrelavent to the ad/keyword chosen.
I suspect this is another example of an large company “over thinking” a process. I further suspect that their algorithm has more to do with pleasing the large advertisers with large budgets, by making it nearly impossible for the small business owner to buy highly competitive ads. Of course this is pure speculation, but I see a lot of complaints on the internet about how Google keeps running up the price. I have experienced it myself, when I log into my account and see that the 1st page recommended bid has been increased yet again.
As always, thanks for the forum and the discussion. Nothing in this post is meant as an attack on you. I am curious as to how you see it, as you seem well versed.
Regards,
Chad Musgrove
@ Chad
The problem with the human element is that often times it is up to the person, versus following strict guidelines. I have had instances where a manual review has worked out in my favor and instances where it went horribly wrong. Either the personnel at Google or unqualified, or they base their decisions on their own discretion or how good their day is going. Not something that I want my business to run off of, but it is the reality of Google Adwords.
Best thing you can do is follow their rules to a T. The main problem is sounds like you are having is that you do not have a multi-page site…although you may have a quality, rich content page that you are driving your visitors to, Google views single page landers without other inter-linking pages (to other pages on your site) as low quality, thus lowering your QS. You may want to try making it multi-page and then recreating this campaign from scratch to see if this helps.
As for Yahoo Search Marketing…they are much easier going, however the traffic is less than that of Google. Advertisers moving over to YSM will not have the same impact as people actually using the search…the metric Google bases their success off of.
Cheers,
Kyle
I found this post thru a search on Google for “Google adwords vs Yahoo Search Marketing.”
I was searching for this, because I am tired of Google’s policies that punish “new accounts.” I have several clients that I do Analytics, SEO, and Adwords for. Most have great performing ads, that convert well above average. Almost every one of my keywords in the accounts I manage have at least a 7/10 Quality Score. I recently launched an adwords campaign for a moving company, built a landing page about moving companies in Denver, followed all the rules, (Title tag, meta tags, heading tags, and keywords in content) chose only a few keywords for the campaign, and directed traffic to a specific landing page. This landing page has Quality content, is easy to use, and has helpful tips (with a link to the BBB website.)
How does Google Adwords reward me? With 3 and 4 out of 10 Quality Scores. I finally reach someone at Google (she was very nice) but just regurgitated the same info available on all the help forums….. I am so frustrated with this, because I am following every rule available, and have built highly relevant ad’s, to highly relevant landing page. On one KW, Google even says my KW relevance is “poor!”
SO guess what? I am now going to try moving these keywords to YAHOO SEARCH MARKETING. Maybe if a lot of advertisers start doing this, Google will wake up and fix these issues.
Google could fix this very easily – set up a help and support team, available to call – and let the people who answer the phones have “review” ability. A human looking at my campaign could easily see it was one of the better ones, and “reward me” with a high QS. They could keep the algorithm in place to analyze the majority of the ad’s, but add a human element and it would be perfect!!!
Sorry for the long post, Thanks for the forum….
Great post about PPC. I currently run PPC with MSN because like you said adwords is slap happy and does not stick to their own policies. It is fustrating to put together a new landing page which is totally unique and relevant to a certain niche and then to get a crappy quality score when some of the pages on the first page of sponsored listings look not nearly as good as your page.
Yahoo and MSN/Bing together should be a good alternative to slap happy Google!
Hi Carson
I only posted my first site in January and have since been fighting with adwords, wondering if I am going nuts attempting to interpret a logic that apparently isn’t there. Been forming the impression that Google are trying to depose MSFT from the throne of most widely cursed computer company. Tyranny with no right of appeal.
I tried 7search and was really pleased with the pricing and CTR – but the conversions were dreadful, as in zero (would have expected 6 – 8 sales). Does anyone else have experience of 7?
Glad to hear similar feelings aired by others, my family can’t comprehend my ranting.
Pete
@Eddy Solomon: You hit the nail on the head when you say that “it’s never good to leave all your eggs in one basket”. Google Adwords offers advertisers the largest network of searches, however it’s not the only option by any means. Yahoo and MSN are great options for PPC and I personally use them ONLY for some campaigns. Diversification in your PPC advertisements is an important thing to consider because you never want to rely on a SINGLE entity for anything that drives your business.
For anyone who is getting slapped by Google Adwords, take this opportunity to change the way you do things. Initially you may want to allot some time to building things up in Yahoo and MSN. However you need to evolve with the times and learn that Quality content is what Google is looking for on your landing pages among a bag full of other things.
Got slapped recently?
1 – Get some traffic flowing from Yahoo and MSN Adcenter
2 – Re-vamp your campaigns at Adwords and evolve with the times
Carson
Carson,
Great post.
I was a victim of the first Google slap way back in 2006 and haven’t been a big fan of Googles since then anyway but what you say about them still being the best way to drive targeted traffic is true but I am hoping the day comes (soon) when there is a more friendly and viable way to do PPC advertising.
I tried Yahoo sponsored search years ago after the slap but the interface wasn’t nearly as easy to use as Googles or as profitable (ROI).
You would think a company as big and successful as Google is, would be more responsive to their customers needs and concerns but it seems Googles ideology is that they are so big they can do what they want how they want.
Maybe they ought to take a page from history and see how well that worked for the big 3 automakers just before the Japanese auto invasion of the ’70′s and ’80′s. History does have a way of repeating itself, especially in business when companies don’t learn from the past.
Keep up the great work you do on this blog. Looking forward to reading about more ways we can cut the Google umbilical cord.
Steve G.
It’s great that you are on top of things. I still have a long ways before I even can think of catching up. I am setting a goal that by 1/1/2011 I will join Search Alliance, and WA even sooner.
Wish me luck. Thanks guys!
Great Post. Will MSN-Yahoo alliance be enough to keep Google from being arrogant is to be seen.
Google is in a a way racist…. the right term is Oligarcic
Carson,
Google’s tactics kind of sound like what eBay has and is doing to people who helped build it.
eBay’s top execs apparently have so much money that they don’t care how many people leave.
Hi Carson,
Thanks for the informative article. Google getting slap happy is one reason I haven’t started to do PPC marketing. I want to make sure that when I do I get everything right and not get banned. I think I will start with other PPC than Google.
Vicky
really good info. in your articles, i learnt a lot and want to read your every post. Kyle & Carson, keep helping people.
thanks alot
I think Google will continue to slap advertisers. It seem to me that most of the big names companies are filling up the search spot. We the small marketers will just have to take our business else where. I also think that the alliance will be good for all of us and sooner or later Google will wake up and rethink their strategy.
Very cool article and extremely relevant. I think that Google will eventually come around as new venues for advertising begin to take over a chunk of change in the market…. Personally, I have always been a big fan of yahoo searching. BING? I remain unimpressed. Google adwords will not be KING forever. People are already becoming “ad blind” and able to recognize the google ads on blog and website pages, overlooking them and moving onto good the content they want. Google needs some new stuff. Let’s face it, we all know a google ad when we see one.
There are some new Ad venues through Facebook. That is encouraging. I do hope that Yahoo is able to step up and offer something unique. I would be on board with that. Yahoo has been awesome in my book.
I have had many friends suffer the “G-SLAP” and it does make it intimidating to go with adwords and adsense…. when you dont really know if you will have success, or get your blacklisted for something you don’t even understand. I think that Google could do a great service to Internet Marketers by offering some better step-by-step instructions, some oneline tutorials, etc. Instead of just making folks play guessing games.
Thanks for the interesting info. Although I have six sites, I haven’t used ppc yet, but will start soon.
Hi Carson, you have a point when you say that with all the restrictions Google is peing people off and advertisers will start using Yahoo more. However, having more advertisers doesn’t mean having more people searching through Yahoo and one of the reasons that is happening is because Yahoo, unlike Google, have those most anoying, jumping all over your screen, screeming in your face advertisments! Peaple don’t like that! With Yahoo, if you want to find something, or even check your emails, you spend most of the time actualy battleing with those ads trying to close them down! In my opinion as a user, and not advertiser, that is not something that will inspire people to use your search engine.
Regards Biba
Carson,
Excellent post about an ongoing issue for myself and so many others. Any competition for Google is a good thing. I have been using Yahoo in addition to Adwords for quite some time. It just makes sense to not have all of your eggs in one basket. -Norene
So you guys won the Hockey! Good for you! Great game but I don’t like overtimes. A tie is a tie.
Anyway, I’m glad you won. It was your Olympics.
Good article! I’ll go back over there and give it a try.
John
Thank you Carson for this information. It is very informative. I am new to Wealthy Affiliate and to internet marketing.
I have been struggling with finding what I need at Wealthy Affiliates. There is such a wealth of information.
Thanks for all the help you can give.
Linda
Interesting post, Carson. Thanks for bringing this to our attention and sharing your thoughts.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. If more marketers move over to the search alliance, maybe the alliance will see an increase in revenue that can then be re-invested into their search engine with a view to making one that truly can rival Google’s.
On the other hand, if Google’s ‘domination’ is to continue, could there be some interference from somewhere to say that such a monopolistic presence is detrimental to the user’s experience.
Already there have been criticisms that Google will suggest you go to pages that serve its own needs – in other words, people are saying that Google is trying to influence some of their users through the search results they present. This goes against the idea of a service that provides genuine and unbiased results.
I think a big issue is the fact that Google is dominating globally via the internet where there is no real authority that can step in and impose regulations. In fact, if there was anyone imposing regulations, it would be Google.
Anyway, I’d better stop there. But good post – it obviously got me thinking!
Jon.Q
Well said and I totally agree. What peeves me is that Google is basically pushing away the folks that made them so successful in place of fortune 100 companies. From a business perspective I understand why because as a former corporate america insider, I saw how fortune 100 companies would basically flush money into adwords for branding, etc.
So maybe from Google’s perspective they feel they can make up the money they lose from internet marketers by courting more of these huge fortune 100 companies that have money to burn in adwords and usually don’t know what they’re doing.
Either way, I think all this pimp slapping is a great wake up call for all marketers. It’s never good to have all your eggs in one basket and for too long folks were depending on Google’s ppc platform. Now everyone is on their toes again and learning that there are other options out there and they should be explored.
I never liked PPC because I felt it was too much of a moving target especially for us affiliate marketers. So I’m looking forward to seeing other sites embracing our money and building their business on Google’s new disdain for us.
Marketing has always been about evolving and I’m sure the diehard marketers will and have. Facebook ads is a perfect example of this and all the interest in CPV networks. So we just need to keep doing what we’re doing. I’m confident that in time Google will realize the error in their ways and court some of us back especially when the numbers finally hit them.
Interesting article. I’m learning the ropes of PPC with Adwords now, and I must say, it is definitely a challenge to please Google while keeping costs low. Good to know there’s an alternative, even though it won’t overtake Adwords anytime soon.
nice post…. however it looks like you dictated into the computer, etc
the last sentence … instead of where our, it says where are advertising budgets go.
I do disagree with you on google not loosing to competition….
It will not. No one product in the world will hold more than 50% of the total market…..
If it does… not for too long. look at cars, for example…. or anything for that matter.
Google is so damn arrogant. It makes you wanna peev on Lary and Sergei
Who knows, one of these days they will meander to India and may get jailed for not
obeying the local laws of not showing porn.
As you know Bing and Yahoo have porn filters.
Google will not obey the law.
Next thing, they may get kicked out of India.
Fantastic info, Greta that you guy’s are so on the pulse…
Looks like it may be time to take my Pay-per-click accreditation course now. I have just been focusing on other free means of traffic but AS WE ALL KNOW PPC is a perfect driver of targeted traffic.
I am Google Adword user for long. And i love the results it generates. But all of sudden my Ads disappeared, without any intimation. After lot of tries i got able to contact Google, and their answer was more annoying. They said,
“I have more adsense on site than contents”. What is this? I don’t have any adsense at all. Its a E-Commerce site selling flowers. And donot shows any ads.
After my lot of mails, finally they send a reply that they will re-evaluate. And thanks God, now my ads are showing again.
thank for this info..Carson..everyday I always read your mail. i just waiting the good time to learn more from you at WA about internet marketing. wait your next article…:)
Great post and good news to many, for sure.
One thing you barely touched on is Google’s support. It sucks!
Google does little to help with customer support, except for the
videos and FAQ’s you sometimes find.
Hopefully, the Yahoo/MSN change will get them to realize that a
more hands on and responsive support system might help keep
advertisers from jumping ship.
Hi,
Good idea about using both. I used to use Yahoo and had some success, maybe I’ll try it out again.
I do hate that Google can just close your account for no reason. Hasn’t happened to me, but I know some it has happened to. It really sucks when they go from making $500 a day to $0 all because Google shuts down their account.
Thanks,
Bryan