One Reason Why Google Is Killing Yahoo

Here is a real life example that will demonstrate why Google is killing Yahoo on revenue: I recently applied to the Yahoo Publisher Network, which is still in beta. (why is YPN still in “beta”?) Anyway, I wanted to test using YPN on a website of mine, and applied for Yahoo Publisher Network using this sitelead.com domain in my application. Here is the response I finally got:

Dear Todd,

Thank you for applying for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program. It is currently in beta and we are accepting a very limited number of new publishers, but we will let you know when we launch to the general public or if we are able to invite you to join the beta before then. To maximize your chances for approval, please make sure:

* You have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and web site content that is predominately in English and targeted at a U.S. user base.

* Your site provides a good user experience. Please see our complete list of guidelines for a positive user experience here:
https://publisher.yahoo.com/legal/prog_policy.php.

* Your site does not contain problematic content. Please see our guidelines for displaying our ad results here:
https://publisher.yahoo.com/legal/prog_policy.php.

Thanks again for your interest. We look forward to welcoming you into our program when it is open to the public.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Publisher Network Team

Yahoo did not immediately admit me presumably because this website (sitelead.com) does not get much traffic…but how does Yahoo know what other websites SiteLead owns? I guess I’d have to email or call them to get the ball rolling…but why make me do that? I could just much more easily use Google Adsense and help Google’s stock price soar even more. Yahoo: what’s the deal? Seriously. Why isn’t Yahoo more easily admitting publishers into their network?

To put in perspective how much money Yahoo is missing out on…when Google released their outstanding third quarter results yesterday, they reported 34% of total revenue coming from their Adsense program…

Google Network Revenues - Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.45 billion, or 34% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2007. This represents a 40% increase over network revenues of $1.04 billion generated in the third quarter of 2006 and an 8% increase over second quarter 2007 revenues of $1.35 billion.

The majority of TAC expense is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.12 billion in the third quarter of 2007. TAC is also related to amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $105 million in the third quarter of 2007.

Compare Google’s results to Yahoo, whose total company revenue totaled $1.8 billion in their third quarter…

Yahoo said that revenue in the third quarter grew to $1.8 billion, from $1.6 billion a year ago, while net income dropped slightly to $151 million, or 11 cents a share, from $159 million, also 11 cents a share, a year ago.

From what I can tell…if Yahoo can’t figure out how to improve/scale their Yahoo Publisher Network and start letting the “little guys” in much more easily, it won’t be too many more quarters before Google’s Adsense revenue alone takes over the entire revenue of Yahoo.

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