Is this right?
Submitted by smile66603 on Tue, 03/27/2007 - 01:11.
Has anyone else had this happen to them, or am I completely misunderstanding this?
Until today, it was my understanding that the value passed by Yahoo for OVKEY was EXACTLY what your keyword was. That all changed today when I checked my CJ reports and started seeing sales for variations of my keywords, but not for my actual keywords. To use dating as an example:
Let’s say I checked my Yahoo for today and saw that the word:
Denver Colorado dating
has cost me $80. Now I go to CJ and run a report and I panic when I realize that I don’t have any sales for Denver Colorado dating. Now I’m thinking that I’ve lost $80 and that this must be a terrible word to bid on and I’m about to go back to Yahoo and bid down that word, when I notice something strange. I have a lot of sales on CJ for the word:
Dating Denver Colorado
I went back to Yahoo and searched my entire account at least a hundred times and I’m not bidding on:
Dating Denver Colorado
I’m bidding on Denver Colorado dating as a Standard match, so I’m completely comfortable with Yahoo matching me to a search for Dating Denver Colorado, but shouldn’t the value in OVKEY be my EXACT keyword and not the variation that matched? I thought that was what OVRAW was for.
If this is the case, then it makes my job much more difficult, because now I have to go to Yahoo, Google and MSN and write down every word that got clicks. Then I have to go to CJ and do a commission report and not only look for words that match my cost list, but also words that are variations of keywords on my cost list.
Am I understanding the correctly?
Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.
James
Is this right?
Hi James,
Welcome to the wonderful world of Yahoo's MIS(Match) types. This has long been a frustration of mine...
In Yahoo's search world dallas real estate and real estate dallas are the same keyword, regardless of whether your using standard match or advanced match.
If this were Google or MSN they would only be considered the same if you were using broad match - because both keyword phrases contain the same 3 words, but in a different order. However, if you used these two keyword combos with phrase or exact they would be considered different keywords.
.... But not in Yahoo. The standard match type is probably the most nuanced match type. It's suppose to function somewhat like exact match, but you'll find it sometimes acts like broad match when you're using keywords with more than one word (online dating/dating online).
In May I'm meeting face:face with members from the YSM team, and this will be at the top of my list.
Best,
Jeremy
Is this right?
Yeah, I'm with you guys - I've always thought this was an annoying feature of Yahoo Search Marketing. Especially when I'm using Wordtracker or other such keyword tool that lists all the plurals and combinations. When I submit my keywords to the Yahoo editorial process, my keyword list gets pared down to about 1/3 of its former self. Some keywords get the "duplicate" tag from Yahoo, even though they are distincly different from the "originals".
If Yahoo rewards hard working marketers, I think we could add the terms stubborn and possibly OCD to to that description. :P
Mike
Is this right?
Thank you for all the valuable information, it's nice to know I'm not alone. Just to double check Jeremy, so when Yahoo sends the value for OVKEY, it won't necessarily be the keyword you have in their system, since they see them as the same thing.
I also wanted to mention something real quick to hopefully give some motivation to some of the struggling affiliates.
I've been doing affiliate marketing since April of 06 and have grown to the level of doing about $300 a day on Linkshare and about $700 a day on CJ. Well on Sunday night, I did some investigating and found my best performing niche on CJ and did about 4 hours of keyword research on a very narrow section of that niche and added those keywords to Yahoo.
It's about an hour before CJ switches over to the next day and my commissions for today are $1,860. Before today, my best day on CJ was $790, what a huge jump and I would imagine that my keyword research last night had something to do with it. This should be a great reminder that no matter how many keywords you have, your keyword list is nowhere near complete. I also figure that if I can do that after 4 hours of keyword research, then I should be able to do it again with another sub-niche similar to the one I just found.
Hopefully in 3 months, I'll be a CJ performer.
Hope this motivates someone and convinces them to keep going.
James