Yahoo Cancels Popular ‘Paid Inclusion’ Search Program

Yahoo has announced that it will be canceling Yahoo Search Submit Pro (Y!SSP), its fixed-rate cost-per-click program, as of Dec. 31. Also known as “paid inclusion,” this service enables marketers to submit their URLs and page information directly to the Yahoo natural search web index, rather than having Yahoo crawl them via its primary web-indexing technology (known as SLURP). By submitting pages via Y!SSP, marketers have better control over the content that Yahoo searches and displays for their Web site listings.

360i COO John Ragals wrote a column for Ad Age’s Digital Next blog today that outlines the key marketer implications of the Y!SSP cancellation. For those marketers that don’t use Y!SSP, not much changes. Yet the many marketers that do use this service, especially retailers and other e-commerce providers, may need to fine tune or even rethink their Yahoo search strategy. Here’s why:

• The way marketers using Y!SSP optimize for natural search on Yahoo is fundamentally changing. Formerly, marketers using Y!SSP could rely solely on the information sent in their data feeds to be well-optimized on Yahoo. Now, these marketers must look more closely at how they are optimized for Yahoo and ensure that they are incorporating the same data that was previously in their Y!SSP feeds in order to maintain their ranks and timely messaging.
• Marketers will lose out on the benefits of the Y!SSP program. These include: 1) Faster refresh rates as compared to the standard SLURP web crawler, and 2) Greater control over natural search optimization.

By canceling its Search Submit Pro program, Yahoo has removed one of its core differentiators. Given this, it’s surprising to see an abrupt end to a program of tremendous value to marketers without an explanation for any viable alternative. The program is a very strong complement to a marketer’s media mix, maintaining historically low CPC rates (as compared paid search CPCs) and healthy ROI.

With the program going away, many questions arise. A marketer’s first priority should be to get as much out of the program in the short term as possible, while at the same time working on ways to reallocate this budget for brands and their full-year 2010 plans. Additionally, marketers should assess their natural search strength in Yahoo’s SLURP to see if additional optimization may be necessary to maintain their ranks, at least before the Yahoo results pages switch over to Bing.

You can read our complete column on the Ad Age Digital Next blog.