Traffic Flow SEO

Google recently announced that they have given up on Google Print Ads program. They announced it on one of their corporate blogs that even after getting 800 newspapers in the fold, it just was not hitting expectations and as of February 28, 2009 it would be shut down.

Yahoo, on the other hand also has around 800 newspapers within its APT program and it is reporting that they are doing quite well. In fact in a recent article in WebProNews it was stated that:

In fact, just a couple weeks ago, A. H. Belo became the first media holding company in the consortium to have all its newspapers on Apt. Other points of interest that Yahoo shared include:

- The cross-sell program (newspaper sales forces selling Yahoo! inventory) is seeing some good successes. Several newspapers have already sold $1 million in ads.

- The majority of the newspapers’ weekly sales revenue is now transacted on Apt.

- Apt enables the Newspaper Consortium to aggregate more inventory, and the platform’s superior behavioral targeting capabilities enable the newspapers to charge higher CPMs.

- Behavioral targeting has been accounting for a rising percentage of the Consortium’s total weekly sales, currently 70% to 80% of total sales.

- They’re also seeing a share shift to newspaper online ads, from outdoor and broadcast.

- Small newspapers are faring well, proving that ad revenue is not necessarily tied to circulation.

- To boost traffic to the newspaper sites, Yahoo! distributes local news headline links across our properties. The links take users directly to the full articles on the newspaper sites. As of December 2008, Yahoo! sends an average 17 million referrals a month to the 300 newspaper sites participating in the content distribution program. We’re very close to topping 200 million referrals. This means a wider local audience reach and more inventory for advertisers. A.H. Belo’s Dallas Morning News says that the headline placements on Yahoo.com can account for up to 27% of a day’s page views and up to 65% of a day’s unique visitors.

So, what does this tell us? It may just be a reminder that Google cannot guarantee success with all of their ventures or it may indicate that Yahoo may have lower expectations for their program or maybe, just maybe it says - one point for Yahoo. Game on....:-)

Reference Links:

Google says, "Turning the page on Print Ads" from the official Google Print Ads blog.

Yahoo says, "Yahoo Not Doing Too Bad in Newspapers" from article in WebProNews.