Google AdSense v. Yahoo! Publishers Network
Welcome to Y!PN
I was one of the fortunate folks who was accepted into the Yahoo! Publishers Network beta invitation that was extended in late 2005. By January 2006, my submitted site was approved and I began to run YPN ads on that site and on one other site. Gleefully, I felt that YPN was going to be a nice alternative to Google AdSense and the first two months seemed to prove that out. Just like AdSense, I could display an assortment of ads on my site and generate good income by means of paid clicks.
Good Money Followed By A Trickle
The good money flow soon dried up as the number of irrelevant ads increased. Even though Yahoo gives its publishers the opportunity to tweak what type of ads show up on a site, invariably unrelated ads would slip through. If I run an automotive site, I certainly do not want ads hawking mortgages to be included. Worse, throw in some ads for ladies perfume and the click through rate will sink even further.
Yahoo Gives Me A Ring
In the early days, Yahoo phoned me twice to get my feedback about their network (unlike Google whose only contact with me has been via several email broadcasts). The Yahoo representative was very helpful and he seemed genuinely interested in helping me to succeed with their program. He shared some tips on how to get the most out of YPN, so I changed my sites accordingly. The changes helped for a short time, but the ads soon missed the mark again.
Big Bucks With AdSense
I have been using AdSense since October 2003 and the results, especially in the first eighteen months of usage, have been quite good. In fact, I eclipsed the $1000 per month mark for several months during 2004, even topping $2100 by February 2005. Thanks to my two aviation sites, the term “private jet” was a big payer — unfortunately, spam sites also sprung up and the competition killed off my big profits. Later, I found out through an aviation client, that click fraud for the “private jet” keyword phrase was totally out of hand. Eventually, someone wised up and figured out that paying 25 cents per click was much more likely to bring good results than clicks of $2, $5, and $10 or more.
Back To YPN, For One Week Only
After three months of using YPN and AdSense fairly evenly — I switched everything back to AdSense except for a pair of my low trafficked blogs. Income with AdSense hasn’t been all that good, but it is much better than YPN. When I launched JetEmployment in February 2007, the AdSense ads went up and my overall income doubled. However, ten days ago I noticed AdSense income dropping for JetEmployment, so I swapped those ads out for YPN. Big mistake: one week later and YPN has once again proven to be a miserable failure, ad tweaking or not.
AdSense For Now
I plan on keeping my YPN account, but I will only use it as a back up. AdSense is the industry leader as their ads are always relevant and their pay out is much higher. I have my application in with a new ad provider who promises higher income than AdSense, so if I am accepted into their BETA program (more about that at another time) I may take one site and give them a whirl. Then again, maybe I’ll be content with what I have.
Interesting post. I always think about trying YPN, but unfortunately I can’t get in to YPN as I’m not a US resident.
Welcome, Alan. There is one way for non US residents to become part of YPN: get a social security number or tax i.d. number. Plus, if your site’s aim is primarily to an American audience you are eligible for consideration: Yahoo! Publisher Network Beta Program. Personally, I would like to see YPN improve to the point where they are competitive with Google. Right now, they have a lot of work to do.
I have a hard time understanding why Yahoo hasn’t gotten any better at their targeting. It seems to me like they have gotten worse!
Hello Court. YPN is a disappointment, that is for sure. I suppose they don’t have the ad serving technology that Google has. Maybe they should raid Google to get someone from their AdSense team who is a wiz with algorithms.