Yahoo! has recently been informing advertisers that it is shutting down its Content Match service outside of the US.  Content Match placed ads on relevant websites that were part of the Yahoo Publisher Network, matching them by keywords to content on those websites.  While the YPN was primarilty a US network, according to some reports, advertisers in the UK and Germany, for example, could bid for ads on it.  This also gave Yahoo a content matching PPC product that was similar to what Google offers.

If Yahoo is blocking content match for advertisers outside of the US, this is sad news.  Those advertisers won’t have the same opportunities for ad exposure that those in the US do.  It also causing many in the industry to worry that Yahoo might discontinue content match or the YPN altogether.  This would be even more troubling, as it would entirely remove a product capable of offering Google competition in the marketplace.  You can read some more about Yahoo’s move here and here.

It’s just the latest in a string of Yahoo! PPC changes, that have included changes to the terms of service (mostly to reflect the removal of the Overture name) and Yahoo making changes to advertisers’ accounts. In the fall, there were also reports that Yahoo was raising minimum balances for advertisers who used the pre-pay method.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 12:33 pm and is filed under International Internet Marketing, PPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.