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20th
July
2007
 I’m not talking about them selling the company, (although there are rumors) I’m talking about their integrity and their overall credibility as a search engine, by appearing to sell the number one organic search result to the highest bidder. Yesterday I attended the Internet strategy conference in Portland, and one of the speakers was Cammie Dunaway, the chief marketing officer for Yahoo. During her presentation, she explained some new ways that Yahoo is working with advertisers, and she showed a TV commercial where the words “Special K” were typed into a Yahoo search box. When the search result page appeared, there was Kellogs, at the top of the search results, with a Special K logo right there by the SERP. Something about it looked odd to me, then it hit me… Directly above the advertisement, were the words “search Results” and the tinted box and the words “Sponsored Results” had been removed. Apparently this campaign is still running, as I just tried a search and here’s the result -
What bothers me about this, is that by removing the tinted box and leaving out the words “sponsored results“, Yahoo is effectively selling the number one search result. Is that option available for all advertisers? Is that option available for all phrases? Are they selling the number two, three, fours and five search results as well? Cool, where do I sign up before my competition does, and how much does it cost? Yahoo does seem to be leaving the actual ranking numeral to the left of the organic result, does not make this any less confusing for the end user. Yahoo, I think I would I would like my graphic for my “ad” to be a large red #1? Would that be all right? Clearly, it appears that Yahoo has gone out of their way to seamlessly blend an advertisement with their search results. Has anyone seen other instances of this? Do you think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of organic search on Yahoo? |
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Copyright 2007; Search Commander; SEO Consultant Scott Hendison; All Rights Reserved.
July 20th, 2007 at 8:36 am
This is quite interesting. My rep at Yahoo! isn’t in yet, and I noticed that there aren’t any paid listings on that search result. I just attempted to add it to one of my accounts through YSM and got a message back that the keyword phrase was not available for bidding.
Interesting.
I want to wait until I hear from a real person the intent here. Getting an autoresponder back leads to too much speculation!
July 20th, 2007 at 8:59 am
[...] Hendison had a great blog post that you should check out regarding a new “advertising” method that Yahoo! has [...]
July 20th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Scott -
Good catch! I have seen similar results from Yahoo! Shortcuts but nothing this commercial, and nothing with a logo. Usually it’s just links to promotions and Yahoo! related products.
July 20th, 2007 at 10:19 am
[...] http://www.pdxtc.com/wpblog/archives/405 [...]
July 20th, 2007 at 11:51 am
VERY interesting. I noticed this post referenced over on Search Engine Land today.
July 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
[...] Is Yahoo! selling it out?, El Blog de Scott Hendison Yahoo Selling Out Its SERPS to Advertisers, [...]
July 20th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Nice catch, Scott. Google does the same thing, a little quieter, for travel searches - try Seattle to Denver, for example. Those 4 folks listed have some paid relationships
July 20th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Wow, you’re right Rand… I’ve never seen that before! This search shows Google doing the same thing, and not all that much quieter. I suppose the font is a little different… Is that enough to meet meet the Webmaster guidelines for disclosing paid links?
I definitely see this falling under the banner of “full disclosure”. Google and Yahoo are both appear to be selling links in their serps, as far as the end user can tell.
July 21st, 2007 at 8:51 am
[...] ad. I first saw it on Danny’s Search Engine Land posted by Barry who mentioned Scott Hendison found it while searching for Special [...]
July 21st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Scott, I enjoyed your post. I had noticed this sort of thing happening at Google since just before they went public. I just figured this was the way the giants did these things. I guess the bidding can be closed if you throw enough money at the auctioneer. I never thought it was fair just the way it is.
July 21st, 2007 at 3:02 pm
[...] Is Yahoo! selling it out?, Scott Hendison Blog Yahoo Selling Out Its SERPS to Advertisers, [...]
July 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
[...] Fridays post, I pointed out that when Yahoo sells out, they are calling it a “partnership program”. However, when Google sells out, what do [...]
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Is Yahoo Selling Out?…
Yahoo is showing advertisements without designating the listing as a paid link….
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
[...] intersting look at whether Yahoo is selling space in thier [...]
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
The links in Google’s flight OneBox were chosen for merit. They’re not paid in any way and no money changed hands. So this is completely different than Yahoo’s paid-but-unlabeled Special K promotion.
(Added to your other post as well.)
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:06 pm
P.S. Rand, you’re going to get an earful from me tomorrow..
July 24th, 2007 at 5:24 am
[...] Is Yahoo selling out? “By removing the tinted box and leaving out the words ’sponsored results’, Yahoo is effectively selling the number one search result. […] it appears that Yahoo has gone out of their way to seamlessly blend an advertisement with their search results.” [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 6:46 am
[...] is updating.  and then selling out at the same time? Something about it looked odd to me, then it hit me… Directly above the [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 5:34 am
I’ve not seen this in the UK yet, are Yahoo planning to role this out in all countries? Pretty poor show and not something I’m in favour of seeing.
Kevin Taylor
Gravytrain Limited
July 25th, 2007 at 8:01 am
[...] Hendison found an interesting Yahoo Shortcut that appears to have been sold. A search on special k at Yahoo Search [...]
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 am
[...] response to Scott Hendison’s blog post “Is Yahoo Selling Out“. Scott talks about how Yahoo removes the tinted box and leaving out the words [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 9:12 am
[...] posting some more research information I have discovered. This all started with a post by Scott “Is Yahoo Selling Out“. I found something I thought was very interesting. What bothered me was: Did Vintage Tub buy [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[...] wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about Yahoo selling its search results , and now I’m seeing another anomaly that appears as if those “unmarked, yet sponsored [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
[...] a blog post in July about Yahoo selling its SERPS, I pointed out that a search for Special K cereal came up with the Special K logo, any clearly paid [...]
June 18th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Yahoo is a big organisation
Lets see i dont think they gonna sell themself to anyone
still yahoo is no.1 site in the world