Yahoo Closes the Door on Publisher Network

It seems not many people take Yahoo that seriously these days. Yahoo apparently wants to be taken even less seriously by releasing a press release on the eve of April Fool’s Day. A company the size of Yahoo is not in a situation to fool around… with that said, today it was announced that the days of Yahoo’s BETA Publisher Network are soon coming to a close.

The Yahoo Publisher Network will always have a special spot in my heart. I’ve been with the Yahoo Publisher Network almost since they first went live, and started running their ads since January 2006. Just like when Google Adsense first went live, a LOT of money was to be made for those who got in early. During the first year of Yahoo’s new contextual network going live, there were lots of high paying advertisers that needed traffic, but not many publishers and sites being accepted into the network. The end result… the potential for a lot of money to be made by almost anyone that had the resources to fill their traffic and advertiser needs.

Yahoo was very selective on who they opened the flood gates to, and word spread quickly as everyone was trying to get in. Occasionally you would even see people selling their YPN invites for several hundred dollars in forums. As time passed, the Yahoo Publisher Network slowed down and almost on the same playing field as Google Adsense for advertisers and earnings. Now at a opposite of Google Adsense, the program is coming to a close on April 30, 2010.

I guess the volume of sites running their ad platform just didn’t make sense for the company. Or does it have something to do with the new alliance with Microsoft… or even worse, just another dumb move by Yahoo. PaidContent.org reports “The Publisher Network operated a lot like AdSense, but since Yahoo has largely farmed out its search to Microsoft , the company likely thinks it can better concentrate on display through programs like the the Newspaper Consortium and other partnerships.”

The only thing worse than shutting down something as large as Yahoo Publisher Network, is to send your advertisers, partner sites and business over to another network, like they are doing with Chitika. I have nothing against Chitika, and they are definitely making a lot of blogs money, but I would have expected more from Yahoo… even if Chitika does syndicate the advertising for Yahoo Content Match and Sponsored Search products. It will be interesting to see how both companies makes out on this deal.

Something to keep an eye on!

For anyone who wasn’t part of the Yahoo Publisher Network, or hasn’t seen the email, see below:

Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services, in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30, 2010. We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.

Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code from your pages by that date.

For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click here for more information.

We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Sincerely,

Your Partners at Yahoo!

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20 Comments

  1. Seems like ever since Bartz took over as CEO last year, Yahoo has been evaluating its products and services with an eye on closing or selling those that aren't meeting internal quality standards or that the company doesn't consider central to its business. First it was Geocities, and now this. 🙁

    Till then,

    Jean

    1. I thought it was a really dumb move when they sold the domain "Contests.com" for only $380,000. It's not like $380k is a huge amount for Yahoo, and the domain name is worth a lot more in my opinion.

    1. My account shows earnings of a few hundred a month from YPN still listed on various sites, but I had mostly phased YPN out over the past years and replaced them with combinations of CPA, Adsense and Chitika.

      1. Hi Zac, is chitika compatible with adsense? can they run both the same time? thanks and I'm wondering if chitika is available in ASIA.

  3. Their ad targeting sucked big time and payouts per click were also lower than Adsense. I dumped them many years ago. Yahoo was stupid – they never put enough resources behind this product that could have made them so much money.

  5. Yahoo lost the race to be the search engine to yahoo, now it loses the webiste ads channel. They tried to be a community site, and now facebook has taken that from them too.

    They really need to do something drastical to recover their position as an internet leader. Too bad Steve Jobs's taken.

  6. On the surface this seems like another dumb move by Yahoo. My guess is that they could not handle the customer service the ad network required. Based on how poorly Google handles AdSense related customer service, they must be quite overwhelmed with this too. There may have been some hesitation to get too involved with potential click fraud and resulting lawsuits.

  7. Well, this is really dumb for Yahoo to announce this on April 1st considering that people will some what question it… If it is truly legit, that is very bad news for Yahoo, I mean I could easily see this being a total disaster in terms of PR for Yahoo, and they could lose out big in the long run.

    On a different side note… I've never been fond of April fools, lol.

  8. Pretty amazing. I've never tried YPN, for the very reasons that are cited above. They just seem to be sub-standard. Guess I wasn't the only one to have that opinion. Might this be yet another step in the slow death to becoming part of Microsoft?

  10. So what didn't work for them? I though they had everything going right for them at least for the publisher network.. It was a long time in beta and then off the roll.. not very yahooish..

  12. I've used Chitika along side adsense and it seems to work well. I put it after my adsense blocks so that it wouldn't take away any adsense income since the amount per click is much less than adsense.

  13. The evolution of the internet just rumbles on, as another one bites the dust. It is adapt or die out there, baby! RIP Yahoo Publisher Network, RIP…..

  14. I was reflecting this and considering a 2nd thought on this, you know.. its easy for people to rip on Yahoo, especially since these days they aren’t in the best of positions when compared to their competitor Google, but I don’t think Yahoo is that dumb. Perhaps they had very good reasons for making this move, and we will see the outcome of it in the long run.

    Just saying.

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