I'm through with YPN

[Westech]

Update -- see http://www.websitepublisher.net/forums/showthread.php?p=48582#post48582

As some of you know, I was accepted into the YPN beta in November and have been trying them out in various places in my advertising mix.

Soon after I signed up, I called their support number specifically to ask about the section in their terms of service that says that YPN ads should only be shown to US visitors. I was told by "David" at YPN that it was perfectly fine to show the ads to international visitors, but that they would audit my earnings at the end of each month and adjust them to only pay for revenue generated by US visitors. I specifically asked him if I would risk having my account terminated if I sent them non-US traffic and he said no, just don't expect to be paid for the non-US portion of the traffic.

Fast forward to two days ago: I received an email from Yahoo stating that they were terminating my YPN account due to the fact that I was sending them non-US traffic. What website in the world doesn't have at least a few non-US visitors? Does Yahoo really expect all of their publishers to set up their own geotargetting solution because they can't be bothered to detect visitors' countries in real time like every other ad network in existence does as a standard practice?

I called the YPN telephone support number again, and was told that, yes, they had a record of my previous phone call and the conversation we had where I was told that international traffic wouldn't result in account termination, but yes, they were terminating my account anyway. HUH???

On the bright side, they say that they will still send checks for what they owe me so far (minus non-US traffic, as agreed). Still, this really upsets me since I made the concious effort to avoid this problem 2 months ago and was given bad information by their employee. I had hoped to be given the chance to try setting up a geotargetting script on my server and continuing to run YPN ads, but I guess I'll be sending my traffic back to Adsense now and keeping it there even if Yahoo does finally pull it together.

[deronsizemore]

That's shady! Sorry to hear that.

[s2kinteg916]

Complain higher up in the chain... :D

[Masetek]

Complain higher up in the chain... :D

Definately.

You were told by someone that you would not be terminated. This David fellow is in the wrong here not you. Definately go higher...i rekcon they will reinstate you (thats if you wanna be reinstated)

[chromate]

I would wait until YPN go global and then ask for your account to be re-instated. After that there shouldn't be any problems.

But as others have said, keep bugging them if you really wanna be let back in right now.

It's impressive that you were actually able to contact them by phone in the first place! If it were Google, you would have to go through 2 or 3 automated emails before you even reached a human. Having said that, I guess if the person on the end of the phone doesn't know what they're talking about, then it's probably less use than an automated message.

[Westech]

I did press the guy on the phone about it. He insisted that my only recourse was to re-apply for a new account in the beta program, which seemed pretty stupid to me. If you're kicking me out then kick me out and mean it. If not, then let me keep my original account with all of my stats and payment history.

I'm not even sure that I want to be let back in. It's not really worth it if I have to bog down my server by running a geotargetting lookup on every visitor to avoid being terminated. I think I'm through dealing with YPN, at least until they're out of beta.

On the positive side, as chromate says it's great to be able to call in and get a live person. I've called them on 3 separate occasions and each time gotten right through to a live, native english-speaking person with zero time on hold. That alone is a HUGE plus over Google, but I wonder if they'll be able to keep it up once they start signing up more publishers.

Also on the positive side, my first YPN check just arrived last night, so it looks like they still at least plan to pay what they owe me.

[chromate]

Also on the positive side, my first YPN check just arrived last night, so it looks like they still at least plan to pay what they owe me.

Which is another positive thing about YPN. You can bet Google wouldn't pay you after closing your account.

You're right, it's probably not worth it until they come out of beta. I've not seen anyone else kicked out due to non US traffic. Perhaps they took a closer look at your account after your first phone call.

[Westech]

Which is another positive thing about YPN. You can bet Google wouldn't pay you after closing your account.

That's very true.


Perhaps they took a closer look at your account after your first phone call.

I guess that's what I get for trying to be honest and upfront with them. :rolleyes:

[Chris]

I have atleast 25% international traffic and I haven't heard a peep out of them about it.

[Westech]

Have you gotten any checks from them yet? They decided to terminate my account right around the time they issued my first check, so perhaps that triggered it.

Also, I had them at the bottom of my default chain for most of the time, so they were probably getting a lot more than 25% international traffic from me.

[Chris]

Yup, 3 or 4.

[john190]

If I was you I would take the situation further as it is not your fault that you have been suspended from their program. It is there fault. They are just showing very bad business practices.

I have read on some other forums that a few other publishers has also received the email.

YPN is in beta, but banning people just because their site also has international traffic is wrong.

If they didn't pay you then I would have taken legal action against them or something as they would have been doing fraud.

[john190]

That's if the become out of beta. I thought they where fully launching around January. But my guess is wrong.

Also, did you make them free downloadable games on your site as the Adrenaline Challenge game is good and is also a very popular game.


I did press the guy on the phone about it. He insisted that my only recourse was to re-apply for a new account in the beta program, which seemed pretty stupid to me. If you're kicking me out then kick me out and mean it. If not, then let me keep my original account with all of my stats and payment history.

I'm not even sure that I want to be let back in. It's not really worth it if I have to bog down my server by running a geotargetting lookup on every visitor to avoid being terminated. I think I'm through dealing with YPN, at least until they're out of beta.

On the positive side, as chromate says it's great to be able to call in and get a live person. I've called them on 3 separate occasions and each time gotten right through to a live, native english-speaking person with zero time on hold. That alone is a HUGE plus over Google, but I wonder if they'll be able to keep it up once they start signing up more publishers.

Also on the positive side, my first YPN check just arrived last night, so it looks like they still at least plan to pay what they owe me.

[Westech]

If they were withholding my payment over this I would definitely persue it further. Since they're paying out what I had been earning I think I'll just let it go and re-examine using them once they come out of beta. They obviously still have some issues to iron out.

[Cutter]

I know a lot of publishers have switched over to Yahoo because they were paying more, after an audit did you still get a better deal than Google?

[Westech]

Yes, after the audit I still made more from Yahoo than I did from Google. I think the optimal thing to do, at least for my niche, would be to set up some kind of geotargetting that shows Yahoo ads to US visitors and Google ads to international visitors.

[john190]

I have also heard that alot have switched over from Adsense to Yahoo. But some of them have gone back to Adsense again as they were making less with Yahoo due to the poor relevancy of the ads with some sites.

[Westech]

That's true. For me, the clickthrough rate with Yahoo was less than with Adsense, but the extra amount per click that Yahoo paid more than made up for it.

[Westech]

Update!

After being kicked out of YPN way back in January (wrongly, in my opinion -- see my original post in this thread) I'm now finally back in.

At the time I was kicked out, I called the YPN support line several times and was told that there was nothing they could do, and they had no way of referring me to anyone who could help. About a week ago, I finally had the thought to reply to the email they sent informing me that I had been kicked out. This email apparently went directly to their "Relevance Department," and around a week later I got a reply saying they had reviewed my case and decided to reinstate my YPN account! They did stress to me that I must geotarget and display YPN ads to US visitors only, which I definitely plan to do.

For anyone who has been removed from YPN and feels they have a strong case, try replying to your terminiation notification email with a calm, well thought out statement explaining why you feel your account should be reinstated.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Westech, you have obviously been playing with the geotargeting as well. Is this an expensive option? How about a tutorial/primer?

[John]

Westech, you have obviously been playing with the geotargeting as well. Is this an expensive option? How about a tutorial/primer?

http://www.phpadsnew.com/two/

[Westech]

Actually, I'm using the free IP-country database and php API from http://www.maxmind.com/ . I'm leaving town for a few days, but I'll be happy to post some code and a quick tutorial when I return if anyone's interested.

[agua]

I'd be interested to see how it works

[*infin8]

There was a huge hype when YPN launched, I could never get an account because of my non- US residence.. I didnt want to go the illegal route with a YPN channel so I was stranded..

Although it looks like their service is poor, I have also noticed their ads arent targeted to the pages content to well..

Any word on when the service goes out of BETA?

[Westech]

I'd be interested to see how it works
http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/geotargetting-php/

[agua]

Thanks John - great article :)