Yahoo Ends Paid Inclusion

You’ve probably heard the news already – Yahoo announced that “both the “Search Submit Basic” program that charged an annual fee per URL and the “Search Submit Pro” cost-per-click program will end as of Dec. 31, 2009.” Which gives me mixed feelings. On one hand I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but then on the other I didn’t have a chance to try it out myself, I was just in the process of setting it up.

Why didn’t I like it? My main issue was cost. If SSP was to become the norm then we, the advertisers, would pay on all clicks, sponsored and organic. Here’s an example. The screenshot below is showing Vodafone with a top organic listing through SSP (you can tell by the missing Cached link) for their brand term. Surely that’s a click they would’ve got for free anyway? Imagine if all search engines decided that paid organic listings are a good idea – and you can see the attraction – then we’d all have a nasty meeting with our finance officers asking for a doubling of the budgets. We wouldn’t have much choice but pay either since the search market is such a tight oligopoly.

To be fair to Yahoo, SSP has its pretty sides. It allows for quick and easy change of copy and links. It may even help with ranking for generic terms that are so important for acquiring new customers. In fact, it is entirely possible to have a different tactic to Vodafone and go ahead with SSP for generic and product-related terms only and avoid paying for brand. But still, these are things that can be done through good SEO and don’t necessarily need SSP. I’m glad Yahoo have decided (for whatever reason) to go a step back and not try to monetise every inch of their page. Financial officers, you can sleep peacefully! For know.