Yahoo Closes Publisher Program

[Discovery]

Yahoo has closed what it called a Beta program, for publishers.

March 31, 2010

Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services, in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30, 2010. We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.

Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code from your pages by that date.

For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click here for more information.

We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Sincerely,

Interesting that they make no mention of moving to Microsoft Adcenter, or looking into a beta publisher program there.

I do not know the inner workings of the deal with MS Adcenter/Bing. However, it seems to me that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft would have a LOT to do with this decision. If so, why not be honest about it? I think it would be a positive marketing push to say, hey you can now be part of Microsofts program... instead of Chitika, which in our reports turns out to offer very poor conversions.

What are your thoughts?

[AussieWebmaster]

Yahoo just does not get the point that AdSense adds to the volume that Google has - dropping it is like how they dropped their International ppc 7-8 years ago only to chase after it later

Carol Bartz needs to understand that as part of their drive to be the online leading publisher should be to develop such syndicates