Make money with Yahoo Ads (Yahoo’s “Adsense” program). I got asked about different affiliate marketing programs and how to make money with contextual ads last week. One person asked me if there were any Google Adsense alternatives out there because Google shut their Adsense account down due to a “terms of service violation”. Although there are many different ways to make money online, Adsense or rather Affiliate Contextual Ads for me has always been consistent and making money on different types of niche sites has never really been an issue.

So, what does a person do if they’ve been booted off Adsense?

As I mentioned earlier, there are many different ways to make money online other than Adsense. You can sell banner ads, sign up to amazon’s affiliate marketing network, and even try other affiliate contextual ad networks such as bidvertiser or even Yahoo’s Publisher Network beta program.

Yahoo! Publisher Network Beta Program

Yahoo’s Publisher Network Beta Program is just that, Beta. Its an affiliate contextual ad program similar to Google’s Adsense but with one major limitation that I to this day cannot still believe; the fact that it is only limited to Americans. Ok, ok, if you know a little about Yahoo!s program, you’ll know that’s not the only condition. Here’s what the signup page says,

To be considered for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, please enter your information below. Participants of the program must have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and web site content that is predominantly in English and targeted at a U.S. user base. Yahoo! will contact you about your eligibility to participate and about availability of the program.

Well, I find that it’s rather quite disappointing that Yahoo! has decided to limit their affiliate contextual ad network program with these conditions.

Top 3 Reasons Why Yahoo! Publisher Network Program is Still in Beta

1. Quality control requires time. Like many affiliate marketing programs, there are specific requirements your website must qualify for in order to be considered into their program. Chitika for example requires a minimum of 10,000 visitors a month to your site to be considered. By enforcing requirements, you then are able to set standards and ensure the websites and content that your ads are embedded into providing your advertisers with quality leads as compared to other networks where although the ad copy may be relevant, but you get sites that are MFA (a.k.a. “Made for Adsense”). Quality control requires time and resources. Possibly, something Yahoo! doesn’t have much time off or they’ve just given up on the whole idea.
2. Not a high priority. It’s possible that Yahoo! may not be worrying or have a dedicated team working on making money from their contextual ad program like Google has been so successful with Adsense. But, that’s a reason in itself; it would take a lot of resources to further develop and support this program and it seems that their program isn’t high on their priority list. Yahoo! could still just be focusing on Yahoo! Answers
3. They’re just focusing on content. As I mentioned in my second reason, Yahoo! Answers, in my opinion, is one of the best things Yahoo! has ever developed. Its not just another Wikipedia, but it’s a niche that I believe many people overlook especially when developing a “FAQ”; most companies neglect the importance of an FAQ. Yahoo! definitely hasn’t and today, Yahoo! Answers is rich in content, has been built around a social media aspect of encouraging user interaction by allowing anyone to ask questions and create conversations about anything they want to know about. For those of you that remember or know, Yahoo! started out as a content portal. They did it well and still do it well. Despite their lack of success with acquisitions such as Geocities, they’ve been able to maintain their customer loyalty in many places all over the world, such as Asia and the US.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my post about justifying Yahoo!s reason to still have yet to expand their Publisher Network Program. You can always learn more about the Yahoo! Publisher Network Program.

I do want to add that, if you do have a quality site, a resident of the US, look into their Publisher program and let me know how it works out… no, really. I live in Canada *sigh*. I’d love to try it out.