CONFIRMED: Payouts Lower by URL over Time

yo-yo

Mar 5th 2006, 10:17 am

I can now confirm with 99% certainty that YPN is paying domains that dispaly ads for the first time top dollar and as time gos on that domains cut slowly lowers.

Here is how I tested:

1. 4 months ago my main site was paying an average of $10/click. Each month that amount dropped.

From Nov-Dec : CPM dropped 33% overall
From Dec-Jan : CPM dropped 25% overall
From Jan-Feb : CPM dropped 50% overall

2. Since I now have a second site on the exact same topic I decided to put YPN ads on it and see if it did better than the first site which has had ads on it for 4 months.

It shows me the exact same ads as the first site - and since I put the ads on a few days ago - it has paid me 10x what the first site currently is.

jeremy860

Mar 5th 2006, 10:26 am

like I said before, I have noticed this trend also. thats not right at all. :(

Seiya

Mar 5th 2006, 10:33 am

If it ever paid me $10 id be so happy ;p its always been the same for me but your research shows that they might have a condition to keep a ceirtain profit depending on how long you are with them. All i know is once i reach $100 payout ill move to google.

yo-yo

Mar 5th 2006, 10:35 am

Seiya

Mar 5th 2006, 10:38 am

It was, sorry if i didnt phrase my words right.

nt99

Mar 5th 2006, 10:42 am

Hmm, interesting for sure. I definitely have noticed decreased earnings per click but not as clear-cut as you. Mine's fluctuated a LOT....high days and low days. Sometimes I still get a day where I make $4/click but not as frequently as early December when I started.

Seems to be true what you're saying. If so, not cool at all...

mjewel

Mar 5th 2006, 11:14 am

There is a major flaw in your conclusion.

Almost all advertisers run the same ad with different payouts. A keyword of "Breast Surgery" may display an ad that pays $3.00 but if the keyword is "Breast Surgeons in New York" that same exact ad may pay $30 per click.

Just because the same ad displays, the payouts can be vastly different depending on what the advertiser is bidding for that particular keyword. Prices paid per click are based on the specific keyword, not the actual ad.

I run a fairly large number of sites on YPN, and some are paying less, some more. Generally speaking, advertisers seem to be dropping out or lowering their bids. As YPN adds more publishers, it is supply vs. demand, and the lower payouts are likely a result of not enough advertisers with an unlimited budget to spend. Yahoo may be taking a larger cut, but it certainly isn't going to result in a 50% drop. Those large drops or increases are controlled by the advertisers - and the number of advertisers running YPN also factors in.

KINGOFTHEINTERNET

Mar 5th 2006, 11:24 am

dude......haha. I told you. Seriously, thats why you called me this morning.

I still dont understand why they would pay you progressively less though.

yo-yo

Mar 5th 2006, 11:44 am

Almost all advertisers run the same ad with different payouts. A keyword of "Breast Surgery" may display an ad that pays $3.00 but if the keyword is "Breast Surgeons in New York" that same exact ad may pay $30 per click.
I took this into account, and can tell you the KW's are the exact same on both the old and new sites. I'm not going to give anymore details than that, you can come to your own conclusions - all I know is the same content, same kws and same ads on different sites are paying a difference of $9/click.

Generally speaking, advertisers seem to be dropping out or lowering their bids.
No they are not. I track the bids on overture and I know exactly what they're paying. My kw's are in very HIGH competitive areas, are not seasonal - and are still paying just as much per click as they did 6 months ago.

profuse

Mar 5th 2006, 11:56 am

I'm not sure what I said is clear... Here's what I'm saying

If you have two sites, both showing the same ads, only difference is that 1 has been showing ads for months and the other just started - the older site will payout tiny amounts while the new one will payout the full price.

so one should use yahoo for few months and switch to google and switch back after fews months to get high rates. :confused:

mvhs

Mar 5th 2006, 12:02 pm

this is HORRIBLE!!!!

What about those small sites that start off slow... it takes them months to get a good amount of clicks/visitors, and by then, the payouts are total crap????

frankybme

Mar 5th 2006, 12:56 pm

dshah

Mar 5th 2006, 1:18 pm

The ideal test would be

Start a new site with similar content to an established site (showing YPN ads for more than 4-5 months). Observe the payouts on this new site and compare with the existing one.

Even with this setup, its difficult to conclude your point, due to the keyword/key phrase differences (unless you have exact copy of website) in 'similar content'

This whole thing is too speculative and if YPN does gradually decrease payout, YPN is not going to change it if you prove it :)

So its more fruitful to focus on building quality websites/content than spending time on such open ended tests

I can now confirm with 99% certainty that YPN is paying domains that dispaly ads for the first time top dollar and as time gos on that domains cut slowly lowers.

Here is how I tested:

1. 4 months ago my main site was paying an average of $10/click. Each month that amount dropped.

From Nov-Dec : CPM dropped 33% overall
From Dec-Jan : CPM dropped 25% overall
From Jan-Feb : CPM dropped 50% overall

2. Since I now have a second site on the exact same topic I decided to put YPN ads on it and see if it did better than the first site which has had ads on it for 4 months.

It shows me the exact same ads as the first site - and since I put the ads on a few days ago - it has paid me 10x what the first site currently is.

nt99

Mar 5th 2006, 1:22 pm

The ideal test would be

Start a new site with similar content to an established site (showing YPN ads for more than 4-5 months). Observe the payouts on this new site and compare with the existing one.

This is exactly what yo-yo did. From all of his posts, I know he's not an idiot....and combined with trends I've seen, I believe him.

Why is it hard to believe that payouts would decrease? As an ad company, wouldn't you want to attract publishers with high payouts and then gradually lower them? Makes sense to me.

dshah

Mar 5th 2006, 1:25 pm

aaah my bad...I didn't see second point.

This is exactly what yo-yo did. From all of his posts, I know he's not an idiot....and combined with trends I've seen, I believe him.

Why is it hard to believe that payouts would decrease? As an ad company, wouldn't you want to attract publishers with high payouts and then gradually lower them? Makes sense to me.

gamma

Mar 5th 2006, 2:26 pm

From limited testing performed before this thread was posted I would have to agree with Yo-Yo. I didn't see quite as extreme a shift, but the overall trend is similar.

mjewel

Mar 5th 2006, 2:35 pm

I took this into account, and can tell you the KW's are the exact same on both the old and new sites. I'm not going to give anymore details than that, you can come to your own conclusions - all I know is the same content, same kws and same ads on different sites are paying a difference of $9/click.

No they are not. I track the bids on overture and I know exactly what they're paying. My kw's are in very HIGH competitive areas, are not seasonal - and are still paying just as much per click as they did 6 months ago.

You don't understand the process. You can advertisers bid on 100 keywords for the same ad and the price can range from 10 cents to $30. You don't know all the combinations of keywords any particular advertiser is bidding on or what keyword yahoo is going to credit the account. You may be looking up the keyword you think yahoo is using, but it is just a guess. It could be one of a hundred other ones. You don't get to control what ad keyword yahoo serves up. You just don't ad the $30 keyword you want to your page and expect to get paid for those ads. You would need to know the geographical location of the visitor, the keyword they found your site with, the page name - a number of factors which you aren't factoring in. If you site has the keyword "breast surgery new york" yahoo could decide to charge the advertiser based on "breast surgery" or "breast surgery new york" (which can depend on the IP address). Both keyword are on your page but one pays 10x more than the other. An advertiser could also add a negative keyword to a particular ad which would prevent you from being paid the higher amount, even though the same ad is going to show.

You are coming to conclusions which may work for your situation, but that is a long way from proving something.

It's absurd to think that yahoo pays advertisers more at the start and automatically lowers the payout based just on how long you are running the ads. I know for a fact that it isn't true - because I have multiple sites in the same sector and some are paying more than they were 4 months ago.

mjewel

Mar 5th 2006, 2:47 pm

This is exactly what yo-yo did. From all of his posts, I know he's not an idiot....and combined with trends I've seen, I believe him.

Why is it hard to believe that payouts would decrease? As an ad company, wouldn't you want to attract publishers with high payouts and then gradually lower them? Makes sense to me.

I didn't say he was an idiot, just jumped to conclusions and didn't "confirm" anything about yahoo's policy. If I checked all my sites and found sites with a .net tld were down, I could state that yahoo is paying less for ads running a .net tld - and while I could "confirm" that happend in my particular case, it certainly doesn't prove squat about a yahoo policy of paying .net tlds less.

Adsense pays most new sites more because smart pricing hasn't been factored in. Adsense assigns a quality score to a site and can adjust its payment to the publisher. In that case, it's a quality issue, not an accross the board policy that means every site is going to get paid less - and it isn't based on age of the ad either.

nt99

Mar 5th 2006, 3:15 pm

mjewel

Mar 5th 2006, 3:48 pm

I see what you're saying, mjewel, and even agree with most of it. But isn't it strange that a lot of us are seeing gradual trends downward in earnings? Yo-yo as well as many others do see it as strange, and that's why he did this little study. It's not in-depth and it's only 2 sites, but it is interesting to see.

If you read my post, I wasn't saying earning weren't decreasing. I just don't believe it has anything to do with how long you are running ads. Yahoo certainly needs to attract more advertisers and it only makes sense that the more publishers running YPN, the lower the prices will go (assuming no other changes).

Before YPN started for smaller publishers, overture advertisers saw their ads running on far fewer sites - and sites that certainly aren't as prone to click fraud. If I was an advertiser willing to pay x, and now the budget for x doesn't last to the end of the month (because so many more sites are now showing my ad) its going to affect something. Advertisers aren't going to pay a lot more for ads if they can get the same ad to run on adwords for a lot less - (unless the conversion rate is higher, and a there really shouldn't be much of a difference with sites that can run adsense or YPN). On the other hand, if yahoo doesn't pay as much or more than adsense, they aren't going to be successful.

yo-yo

Mar 5th 2006, 3:58 pm

You don't understand the process.
Actually I do, I'm not some noob who does't know how this works, I know exactly how it works and this is exactly why I've been getting $10-25/clicks for four months.

The site that was getting $10/clicks 4 months ago NOW GETS NO CLICKS OVER $1.50, and the CONTENT hasn't change, the VISITOR base hasn't changed either.

I put the EXACT SAME PAGE (exact same HTML, pictures, words, everything identical) on a BRAND NEW URL that had never used YPN before, and BINGO - $10/clicks again.

That's all the testing I need to know that something is fishy, and that they are most likely devaluing clicks based on age.

I know for a fact that it isn't true - because I have multiple sites in the same sector and some are paying more than they were 4 months ago.
How much are these ads paying though? If your only getting .50 cents a click to begin with theres not much furter down to go... maybe it only devalues clicks worth $x amount, I don't know everything and my testing is limited.

My conclusion could be wrong, I'm going to be trying it with a 2nd site that has gone from $6/click to $.80/click just like I did with this one. We'll see what happens...

frankybme

Mar 5th 2006, 4:14 pm

I see what you're saying, mjewel, and even agree with most of it. But isn't it strange that a lot of us are seeing gradual trends downward in earnings? Yo-yo as well as many others do see it as strange, and that's why he did this little study. It's not in-depth and it's only 2 sites, but it is interesting to see.

No this is good when people discuss diffrent ideas and such, and nobody was implieing he was stupid. BUT on the flip side, i have not seen what you are talking about on my sites. I am making more now than i did before. My payouts have stayed the same and i am very happy. Facts of my situation, Over 70 sites, real sites not computer software stuff. Most are from the begining of the beta test. They all payout about the same and doing good. Of course there are drops and rises but this is normal. Remember is not like we are getting salaries here. There are all types of known factors working here.

But then i again i could be one of the lucky ones who continue to do good. I in fact am more worried about being baned for internation traffic than the payouts. But this is a good thread going here regardless.

Nintendo

Mar 6th 2006, 1:37 am

New test to try. Dump Yahoo and place Google ads there for a month. Then put the Yahoo ads back. Do they make the $1.50 clicks, or $10.00 clicks!!!

onedollar

Mar 6th 2006, 1:47 am

New test to try. Dump Yahoo and place Google ads there for a month. Then put the Yahoo ads back. Do they make the $1.50 clicks, or $10.00 clicks!!!
Most likely to be the $10.00 clicks:D

SkiRat44

Mar 6th 2006, 6:16 am

Hey yo-yo, when you performed your test, did you use a domain name completely different, or was a variation from the original. I'm thinking about performing the same test, as my results are very similar to yours, and wanted to ask! Let me know!

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 9:30 am

Completely different domain.

SkiRat44

Mar 6th 2006, 9:49 am

Thanks, I'll try and see what happens.

Completely different domain.

bluegill_catcher

Mar 6th 2006, 1:24 pm

Yo-yo if you will check months back, I saw the same exact thing with AdSense, I thought it was what they called 'smart pricing'. But I also saw the same thing with YPN.
Huge clicks of $5 each, then less than a month, same ads, same traffic amounts, clicks of $3 each. Now 5 months into the program and I am averaging 50 cents or less per click, same ads, slightly more traffic. Like I said before, they pay high at first, then it's a downhill trend, unless you constantly switch to different urls or jump every 30 days from totaly adsense to ypn, etc.......

www.AmCy.org

Mar 6th 2006, 2:19 pm

Actually I do, I'm not some noob who does't know how this works, I know exactly how it works and this is exactly why I've been getting $10-25/clicks for four months...

It's clear that you understand the system quite well, as you are obviously making some good money.

But your conclusion that YPN is lower EPC over time is scientifically flawed, because with any scientific study you can't reach a conclusion based on partial facts or anecdotal evidence. You have to consider all other possible causes for the drop in earnings per click before reaching any conclusions.

The drop in earnings could be specific to a very narrow range of keywords that YPN is monitoring, or it could be caused by something else. There is no way for a publisher to know, because you and I don't work for YPN, and therefore don't have enough information to reach any conclusion.

Everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, but scientists first had to rule out all other possible causes before reaching the conclusion that smoking causes cancer. Could have been the sulphur in matches that was causing the cancer--it's not, but this had to be ruled out first before reaching any conclusions.

Everyone thought that stress and diet caused stomach ulcers, but scientists recently proved that stomach ulcers are actually caused a bacterial infection (H.pilori) and that ulcers can be cured with antibiotics.

If you included some sort of control in your study, then you probably wouldn't have reached the same conclusion about earnings per click. If, for example, you also tried starting a few sites, each with a new domain name, and you targeted a bunch of randomly selected keywords like "student credit cards" and "oven mits", you may have found that with other keywords/keyphrases, earnings per click don't drop at all over time.

With many of my own sites, earnings per click have been consistent and even improved since I was accepted into the YPN beta program back in November, 2005.

As always, IMO. :D

AmCy

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 3:29 pm

AmCy, just one question - your steady amount/click... how much is it? I'm willing to bet it's not over $10/click ;)

www.AmCy.org

Mar 6th 2006, 3:55 pm

AmCy, just one question - your steady amount/click... how much is it? I'm willing to bet it's not over $10/click ;)

I'm willing to bet that the drop in earnings in your test domain was caused by the YPN algo interpreting the content of your test sites somewhat differently, even though the content is the same. The YPN system is in beta, so I think that slight inconsistencies in the way the YPN algo determines which ads will be shown and how much they'll payout will should be expected. We've all seen the YPN algo do strange things, and we pretty much deal with it because, again, it's a beta system that the YPN folks are still tweaking.

Of course, I don't work for YPN, so the above is just a bunch of IMO.

AmCy.

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 5:11 pm

AmCy.. you didn't answer my one question? ;)

I started testing on my 2nd site which has the same trends (totally different kw's) and already my daily balance is much higher than the last couple days... I can already predict what happened :D

www.AmCy.org

Mar 6th 2006, 5:21 pm

AmCy.. you didn't answer my one question?

That's because I didn't think that the question had anything to do with your original premise.

:) :eek: :D :cool:

AmCy

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 7:36 pm

That's because I didn't think that the question had anything to do with your original premise.
Well we've established that not everyone's payouts are lowering, so we continue to discuss theories until we narrow it down.

Obviously if you're being paid an average of 50 cents to start out, they don't have a lot of room to work with for dampening your payouts... however if you started at an average $10/click they have plenty to take away correct?

So maybe the ave. decreases i've been seeing is because my averages are above $x.00 amount and will only go down to a low of $x.00 before it stops. Many of the people here have noticed earnings decreasing EVERY MONTH since they started, so it's reasonable to assume I'm not the only case.

Mike32

Mar 6th 2006, 8:16 pm

its fairly obvious that it is something along the lines of smart pricing, however not exactly the same as what google is doing to people

i dont really remember the overture interface for advertisers off of the top of my head BUT, i am going to go out on a limb and think it mirrors adwords a little... (someone correct me if i am wrong here) there has to be some kind of way to block sites that dont convert as well for your ads... when you first start out with a new domain you are obviously not on the block list of advertisers yet so when you target your ads you are going to get literally, the highest paying ads possible. over time, advertisers will block you for not converting to a level they see fit and then you are not going to be seeing the highest paid ads on your site which will obviously diminish the payout received on your end

this would also solve the part of people saying their earnings havent dipped - you're more than likely using different ad targetting and are probably converting a little better. people targetting higher paying ads also are going to be serving ads for the most aggressive advertisers overture has so theyre going to be a little bit more "tighter" than a lower or mid-range paying advertisers - they obviously want their money to go on sites where the conversions are a LOT higher than the norm.

another thing to take into consideration, if yahoo was behind this and not the advertisers then why wouldnt yahoo just limit your entire account id to lower payments and instead do it by domains? doing it by domain wouldn't make a whole lot of sense when they could easily just limit you by your account id instead and prevent anyone "bypassing" the payout fixing.

just my 2 cents!

www.AmCy.org

Mar 6th 2006, 8:44 pm

...when you first start out with a new domain you are obviously not on the block list of advertisers yet so when you target your ads you are going to get literally, the highest paying ads possible. over time, advertisers will block you for not converting to a level they see fit and then you are not going to be seeing the highest paid ads on your site which will obviously diminish the payout received on your end...

This seems like a much more reasonable explanation to me. Is it true? Only the folks @ YPN know for sure.

I just can't accept that whole conspiracy theory idea, that the YPN people have somehow programmed dimishing payouts for high paying keywords into the YPN system.

As always, IMO.

AmCy

Mike32

Mar 6th 2006, 9:11 pm

This seems like a much more reasonable explanation to me. Is it true? Only the folks @ YPN know for sure.

I just can't accept that whole conspiracy theory idea, that the YPN people have somehow programmed dimishing payouts for high paying keywords into the YPN system.

As always, IMO.

AmCy
i agree 100%, if ypn wanted to slowly lower your payments they would do it by account id not something so easily bypassed like domains.

i am almost certain the advertisers are the ones to "blame". i say "blame" because you really can't blame them for wanting the best possible performance for their money... especially the ones paying $10+ per click

www.AmCy.org

Mar 6th 2006, 10:19 pm

...i am almost certain the advertisers are the ones to "blame". i say "blame" because you really can't blame them for wanting the best possible performance for their money... especially the ones paying $10+ per click...

Yep; I'm an advertiser as well as a publisher, and I expect at least a decent ROI with my ad campaigns, and I would think that many other advertisers do as well.

AmCy

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 10:26 pm

I'm 99.9% sure advertisers have no way to block domains in Yahoo (yet).

Mike32

Mar 6th 2006, 11:20 pm

I'm 99.9% sure advertisers have no way to block domains in Yahoo (yet).
well it could very well be some sort of smart pricing in that case ... i know there is conversion tracking available in overture although im not familiar with exactly how "deep" that gets, as far as conversion per domain or just per category/kw or whatever

they can also opt out of content match which would limit their ads to yahoo searches only, but that is less likely. i guess that could be answered by you though... are you seeing the SAME exact ads on both domains? same ad wording and url? if they are the exact same ads then it has to be a form of smart pricing

yo-yo

Mar 6th 2006, 11:30 pm

are you seeing the SAME exact ads on both domains? same ad wording and url? if they are the exact same ads then it has to be a form of smart pricing
As stated before, YES, exact same.

BTW guys.. today has been my highest earning day since I started... I really don't care what they're doing anymore :D

mvhs

Mar 6th 2006, 11:50 pm

They decrease the payments over time? Or each month?

www.AmCy.org

Mar 7th 2006, 10:23 am

... today has been my highest earning day since I started... I really don't care what they're doing anymore :D

Heh..and that's the bottom line, isn't it? There are plenty of folks out there right now earning $0.01 per click with that other popular contextual advertising program, who are very envious of the earnings being made by those who have been accepted into the YPN beta program.

We stick with YPN because the earnings are still very strong, and I'm betting that the YPN program will only improve with time.

I'm really looking forward to direct deposit myself :D :D :D

AmCy

rehash

Mar 7th 2006, 10:34 am

They decrease the payments over time? Or each month?
for me the same thing happens with adsense

yo-yo

Mar 7th 2006, 10:50 am

Heh..and that's the bottom line, isn't it?
Yes but I only saw that amount because I switched the sites...the bottom line is I was trying to share my discovery with anyone who could use it to their advantage, you can speculate and disagree with whatever you want, I tested my theory on 2 seperate kw's, 2 seperate domains, same content, html, etc and it worked.

We stick with YPN because the earnings are still very strong, and I'm betting that the YPN program will only improve with time.Yes - some day I plan to write about how I had such success on YPN (when it no longer works)... some of you will be greatly suprised I think..

I'm really looking forward to direct deposit myselfNot me... I love walking into the bank with 9 checks (affiliates, etc) and see the look on the tellers (usually very hot, btw) face :o ;)