Yahoo's introduction of Ad Quality, which is being officially released on February 5th, is the buzz in the SEM Industry. But is it really going to be an eye-popping event or just another scheme to keep us testing and spending our hard earned advertising dollars. Usually, the first thing that comes to mind if your an SEM geek like myself, is that this is Yahoo’s attempt to mimic Google's ever-popular Quality score. Google’s quality score is reported to consist of relevancy from the keyword level, Ad/creative level and landing page where relevancy – all of which means that SEO techniques are starting to play a significant role in the rewarding of CPC and AVG Position.

Yahoo’s attempt appears to be only a ¾ of the way there. According to the recent Yahoo's Press Release, their Ad quality is exactly what it sounds like, the quality of the Ad/Creative and the impact that is has on it’s users. Yahoo is basing their new Ad Quality on a few common factors: (1) Historical performance (2) CTR% related to competitors & Ad position (3) Yahoo's coined phrase “Expected Performance”.

Now, all of a sudden Yahoo has their own ranking algorithm for determining the winners and losers.

So how do we crack the code? It’s surprising to me that nowhere in the press release is there any mention of word “landing page”. It appears that Yahoo is simplifying the Google quality score algorithm, and just concerning itself with Ads and the selection of keywords of where the ads are being served. Could these other “various relevance factors” include landing pages, relevant keyword groupings and url naming structures? I guess this is their way of keeping their customers guessing on how to save a buck in the long term, while for now forcing us to continue to spend money on testing to see what is really working and what is not.

Greg Meyers is a Sr. Search Marketing Manager at Commerce360