Yahoo’s Affect On Google’s Quality Score

MoreVisibility - February 27, 2007

Keeping up-to-date with the latest technological developments is important in the Information Technology industry. When it comes to Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Google always seems to be at the forefront of productivity and innovation. Yahoo’s new platform, however, seems to have a leg up on Google Adwords this time around.

Yahoo unleashed its new platform, code name Panama, on February 5th of this year. Advertisers have been eagerly anticipating a new interface to enhance a campaign’s effectiveness. Yahoo has done away with its archaic bidding system and has created a new ranking system that is easier to understand. The creation of this system will force advertisers to use solid copywriting and direct marketing principles in setting up ad campaigns.

Individuals who have upgraded to the new system can now gauge the quality of their ads by viewing the prominently displayed quality index within the new Yahoo Search Marketing interface.

The use of quality score grading measurements in each of the search engines can affect an ad campaign’s effectiveness. Utilizing quality score for optimizing campaigns and determining ad positions for sponsored ads has become a common practice in SEM.

Similar to Yahoo, Google Adwords uses a quality score for its ranking and is based on landing page quality, bid amounts and ad performance. Until recently however, the quality score data had not been visible to advertisers. The launch of Yahoo’s new interface prompted Google to allow access and the ability to its users to view an individual keyword’s quality score. The fact that Google is following Yahoo’s lead for a change is interesting because Google is usually at the forefront of new innovations. Within the Adwords program, Google’s quality score rating can now be displayed as an optional data metric. To read more on Google’s new quality score rating, click here.