Oh Yahoo!!!

Big news Yahoo announces “its new search marketing ranking model in the U.S. on Monday, February 5.” Now I am really excited in addition to the bid process to get your ads noticed you need to concern yourself with – “When the new ranking model goes into effect, both bid and the ad’s quality together will determine where an ad appears in the search results. The quality of an ad will be determined by its historical performance in the new system and its expected performance relative to other ads displayed at the same time. Ads of higher quality will generally receive better placement on the results page.”

I don’t know about you but anytime I hear the word “QUALITY” it makes me nervous. Quite a bit has been written good about this initiative but as for me I am a bit skeptical. When I hear “QUALITY” I can’t help but think of an ice skating championship. There is so much up to the “judges” for a performance, that what you and I think might be special are not what the “the judges are looking for”.

I will wait and see but anytime someone else judges my intent it makes me nervous.

That being said I do however think it is wise to somehow clean up the ad mess with too many ads not as relevant as perhaps they could be under certain searches. We will see if the “Gods” in Yahoo land can help me make up my mind on this one.

One last rant if you don’t mind – perhaps just a question – why Zibb isn’t there enough directories out there for B2B or is it just me and I could be convinced otherwise, would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Rick Simmons is a principal at Dinkum Interactive, a firm specializing in online marketing solutions for small and medium sized businesses around the globe. With more than 25 years of experience in advertising and marketing, Simmons has spent the last four years focused on search engine optimization, and other Internet marketing strategies. Reach him at 267-626-9094 or [email protected]