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I recently posted that I had signed up for Yahoo’s new Yahoo!Publisher Network, which is competition for Google’s AdSense. Read more about that here.

I am still waiting for a response to my email to Yahoo! on the subject. Which brings me to the point of this article.

Google has obviously cornered an enormous share of the market with very few serious contenders even in the game. Sure Yahoo! can overcome that in no time by offering a better bottom line, meaning more money to publishers. But I am guessing that the guys are Google are smart enough (as they are VERY smart) to be competitive no matter what Yahoo! does. So how can Yahoo! possibly hope to compete?

The answer is simple. Match everything that Google has to offer and give more. What would this entail?

1) Matching Google:

a) Great revenues for publishers
b) Lots of tools and different ad formats
c) Great technical support

2) Beating Google:

a) How about telling us the revenue share we are getting? Google’s secrecy on gross pay-per-click and revenue splits was tolerable when they were the only game in town but publishers would like to know more about what is really going on.
b) Better reporting: Which ads are getting clicked on? Which pages get the most traffic and clicks? Google’s system of AdSense channels is both cumbersome and limiting. It shouldn’t be too hard to offer more.

Unfortunately I can’t comment on Yahoo’s revenue share disclosures and reporting as I haven’t gotten in yet. Perhaps someone who is on the “inside” could leave a comment? My guess is that they will do a better job than Google here; it is not that hard to do so. (And then maybe Google will improve to stay competitive, which would be great!)

I also think that Yahoo will provide solid revenues to publishers and plenty of ad formats and tools. If not they are going to get laughed out of the competition and dissatisfied publishers will not use them.

IMHO that leaves Technical Support as a major hurdle for Yahoo!. For years and years Yahoo has been the 700-pound gorilla that didn’t need to be bothered answering emails, phone calls, or phone messages. Submitted your site to Yahoo? If you wanted to know if your site was accepted you just had to wait around for a few months until the Yahooligans got around to reviewing it… or maybe not. You would never know if it was reviewed unless it was accepted, and if it wasn’t, good luck finding out why not. Until they came up with the great idea of charging hundreds of dollars for the priveledge of being reviewed, which to this day the spider-based engines (including Yahoo’s) basically offer for free.

I might add that Overture’s attitude was very similar, at least for publishers if not advertisers. If you are HUGE, maybe we will talk to you. If you aren’t, fill out this form and if we get back to you, we get back to you. If not, sorry, it’s only because you are a loser and we are Overture.

Truly the Yahoo!-Overture merger was a merger of like-minded cultures of “We’re the biggest, and we don’t have time for anyone who we don’t deem to be worthy of us.”

My feeling is that Yahoo’s big stumbling block is going to be the need to change that culture. Google is making billions by catering to lots and lots of little guys. Their tech support is fantastic and they give the idea that they actually care about us mere mortals. To get in on the action Yahoo! is going to have to do the same, and fast. That will be 180-degree turnaround. I hope they will be able to do it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.