AdSense versus Yahoo Publisher Network
August 24, 2006
The Yahoo Publisher Network came storming out of their corner, fists swinging with promises to rival AdSense, but so far it hasn't managed to land any major blows. YPN is still in Beta, and still only supports USA traffic–very light weight for the contextual network backed by the giant Yahoo.
Even so, there are a lot of publishers in the beta network (myself included), and I've seen the question posed many times: Who is better, AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network?
I know this may seem like a dodge, but the answer is… it depends.
It has been my experience, and that of many other publishers from what I read on the forums, that YPN pays much more per click, as a rule. But don't get too excited just yet. Their targetting is much worse, so the click through rate is generally far less than with AdSense. Yes they usually pay more per click (sometimes 5 times more), but with a 0.5% CTR that doesn't really pay the bills.
There have been reports of a few webmasters who are just thrilled with YPN, since they happen to have sites on the topics that YPN actually has good ad inventory for. Unfortunately for them, as soon as YPN goes out of beta and everyone can be a publisher, their EPC is only going to go down. Right now it's a seller's market, but when everybody can publisher, the market will swing more in favor of the buyers, the advertisers.
So the best thing I can recommend is to give YPN a try if you can get into the beta network, and test out your pages to see which ones work better with YPN–if your time isn't more valuable than any slight gains you might get from a few pages.
I'm afraid for now AdSense remains the heavyweight champion, and YPN is still in the lockerroom trying to figure out how to ties its shoes.
Comments
16 Responses to “AdSense versus Yahoo Publisher Network”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
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I think most people are still not willing to give up the AdSense revenue and risk it in the untested YPN.
With the recent Google slap to Adwords buyers, the revenue from Adsense has dropped, sometimes significantly. YPN has not, so is becoming better just becuase Adsense is becoming worse.
What we do is TEST and then make the call. When we roll out new material we first run Google for say 2000 impressions then switch it to Publisher for the same 2000 and pick the winner.
In this way there is NO SPECULATION the system of capitalism determines the better horse for the particluar race.
I launced a tiny 9 page site about a current event topic in March. It ended up in the top 14K on alexa for a few months and made me several thousand on Publisher. Google would not even display ads for me.
In other areas yahoo clicks paid a LOT MORE but the CTR was so low as to ruin any gain. In other areas the higher click price on YIP was more then sufficient to tripple Adsense.
The key is testing, you set up a new channel, you run the test and you judge the results, then you know. Anything less is simple speculation,
Jack
One important point here is that YPN will not work for traffic outside the USA. So if you have primarily USA traffic it is a good idea to try out YPN. As a couple of the comments above indicate, sometimes it pays off handsomely.
However, if you have a lot of traffic outside the USA, then it's quite unlikely to be very profitable for you.
Test, test, test!
Your analysis is most timely.
For some reason, Google has just canned my adsense account due to 'illegal clicks'. Now from what I have seen on various forums, that is the end, but if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. It does seem a bit of a shakey base with which to build a business, that can get canned with no right of appeal. I have faxed the entire Google Board with my reasons why I would never do illegal clicks, but how do others fare in this? My wife and I have spent the last 5 weeks / 14 hour days getting 63 of Joel Comm's sites up and Article Underground 2 modules. We are walking around in a daze today - dont quite know what to do!
I had an account at adsense, the traffic was increasing and the revenues were good. In the second month I was making about $15 000 in adsense revenue. From one day to the other, just like that, google cancelled my account saying that there was click fraud. Me or anyone I know of havent done not even a false click, yet google cancelled without appeal the account and kept all the revenues … Its indeed a very unethical way of doing business , to say the least. I hope Yahoo brings a fresh new air into this business for the sake of all who work and believe in a competitive and honest internet.
So, in broad strokes, what have you found to be "the topics that YPN actually has good ad inventory for"?
I've been told by some publishers that it does well in the consumer electronics and loan areas. Don't hold me to that, though, since it was second-hand information.
Hello,
I am believe, that more important than all the discuss about Adsense Google and Yahoo is the rules of this companies. If you know that they will you shout down in one day after you have made a full work over one year and they don't will give you any answer what’s the "REAL" reason, so "this problem" will suffered a lot of people. But just today, there is not one "Net worker" which has a look on this. Only the "Gurus" tell us, that we should make a lot of money with "Adsense". Yes - there are some people but the most 98 % are the workers without profit.
Fritz,
98% without profit? Not according to Google's quarterly earnings reports. AdSense publishers are responsible for 50% of Google's gross profits. So a lot of AdSense publishers are making money.
Are they all making "a lot" of money? That depends on what you consider "a lot". For some it might be paying their mortgage each month, for others it might be $10,000 a month or more.
I was making $110 a day with YPN (in the art sector). One day I get an email from them saying that they are terminating my account because of "poor traffic quality". It took about five emails to determine what that meant. Finally they told me that I had too much "foreign" traffic. Apparently they didn't want a lot of traffic from other countries for their BETA program. I'm back on AdSense now and I'm only averaging $40 a day. YPN did say that I can apply for "future releases". It still stings, although at least I have a backup for now.
I'm not US resident.I cannot apply YPN yet..I'm really want to change from Adsense to YPN..Google always canceled my account when i reach minimum payout because they said there are invalid clicks. i don't how the determine that "invalid clicks" or just my traffic just mostly come from my country..70% raffic from my country..
Hello! I didn't have to read your blog to get your answer .. just look at the ads! :O)
Sounds like a great idea to diversify income - how would you find out "estimated" income from a particular niche though - without actually trying it?
Hey Jon,
This is Bryan Tran. How are you doing? thanks for the tips in your newsletter. Right now, I spend few minutes everyday to visit your blog try to pick more adsense tips.
Your "Translation Gold" is amazing… I uploaded to my website about 2-3 weeks ago and I already got few clicks from other country.
Great product… Please lets me know when you have more new product coming out.
thanks
Bryan Tran
Comment on your article? Is the sky blue or is the sky pink? Well that depends on whether you are wearing rose colored glasses or not. Same goes for your article.
Of course you are applying as always, excellent seo techniques. In this case, all those e-mail links clicked on for Alexa Rankings. I love it.
YPN? Stop messing around, the above few comments are enough not to apply the effort until YPN goes world-wide.
You are better to focus on in-text links to a few affiliate programs on a page with adsense. Rather than spend the time with YPN and have to use a script to serve up to each search engines spiders.
For those not in the know, you get your site de-indexed from Google, if they find you are serving YPN on the same site IP address.
In the end, there are far better advertising networks than YPN. YPN is childs play at this point and is simply going after the cream at the top and cherry picking at Google's revenue stream.
If YPN doesn't get their act together by the next quarter, or two at the most; YPN will flop. To Google? No, to in-text ads, pay per lead ads, affiliate ads. Because anything is going to be better than a geographically crippled ad network.