YSM's Affiliate Policy

Hi,

Can anyone explain YSM's affiliate policy regarding direct linking? Is it true that YSM doesn't allow an affiliate to send traffic directly to a merchant's website?

If it is allowed, how is this accomplished? When I tried to set up my YSM account, only one URL was asked for. Where am I meant to place my affiliate link and the merchant's URL?

With Adwords, I can place my affiliate link as the destination URL and the merchant's URL as the display URL. Is YSM different?

 

Hi there “Masterful,”

I saw your post regarding Yahoo! Search Marketing’s affiliate policy.

Currently, we don’t accept direct links to a non-personalized merchant’s page. The landing page must be owned or controlled by the affiliate (not the merchant) or be personalized/co-branded with the affiliate’s name or business name.

We are continually reviewing our editorial policies while listening to our advertisers’ feedback.

Hope this helps,
YahooPete

 

YahooPete,

Thanks for your response.

I have to say, I find YSM's affiliate direct linking policy to be quite frustrating, even annoying. Why should YSM disallow an affiliate direct link if it is allowed by the merchant? What's it to do with YSM? If the merchant doesn't require co-branding of the landing page, why should YSM demand it?

I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind this policy. Who exactly benefits from it? As far as I can tell, YSM doesn't derive any benefits, and the affiliates and merchants especially don't.

I think YSM needs to think things through. It is very far behind in many respects when it comes to providing a useful and effective PPC service.

Please do not take my comments as a personal complaint towards you. It's YSM and its archaic and very disagreeable policies which are to blame.

I appreciate your feedback, Sir, and I thank you for your help.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

No direct linking = Less Advertisers = Less clicks = Less revenue for Yahoo = Everybody loses.

Just allow Direct Linking and everybody wins.

Damn I'm a genius! I should be CEO of Yahoo!

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind this policy. Who exactly benefits from it? As far as I can tell, YSM doesn't derive any benefits, and the affiliates and merchants especially don't.

 

Just got this from CJ today!

Yahoo! Search Marketing Becomes More Publisher Friendly

After more than six months in the making and much customer feedback and testing, we are pleased to announce that Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) has recently updated its editorial policies and will now allow U.S. publishers to direct link to their advertisers. In the past, YSM's editorial policy prevented publishers from linking directly to their advertiser partners and required that traffic be sent first to the publisher's Web site. The new policy eliminates this restriction and opens a much broader search marketing opportunity for publishers.

AWESOME!

 

only for US publishers?

 

I believe that YSM UK is still following the old rule.

Rolf