TQ score

[NameSniper.com]

Hello everyone,

Its been about a year since Yahoo instroduced TQ score.
As you may know Yahoo assigns TQ score on per portfolio basis, not per domain basis as Google does, but there are still a lot of questions about TQ score remain unanswered/unclear.

Some of them are:

How soon Yahoo assings TQ score?
How often do they revise it?
Is there anything known about how does Yahoo assign TQ score? Like names with higher CTR are better etc?
Also is there a minimum TQ score that I should maintain?

Hopefully Donny will answer these questions.

[petrosc]

According to Donny's posts on this matter, here are my conclusions(and answers to your questions)

1. When you have at least 100 clicks per day from US visitors you get a TQ score
2. hey revise it every week or so
3. The TQ score is being calculated based on the conversion rate your traffic has in the advertisers' websites. The maximum and best score possible is 10, and this is equal to the conversion rate of the Search traffic of Yahoo.com itself. If you have a 10, then it means that your traffic converts as well as search traffic. When your traffic has a lower conversion than that, then you get a lower score (more variables are taken into consideration though, such as niche and god knows what else). The lower the score, the bigger the discount the advertiser gets for a click received from your domains(and the lower the revenue you make - the discount is a few cents per click, again depending on a few variables)
4. Having a low TQ (like 1) for a prolonged period of time might cause problems with your account, I have heard of some cases (in other providers, not sure about parked.com), where Yahoo asks the provider to terminate your account.

I don't know if I am being mistaken in some of the above points, I'm sure Donny will correct me

[Acro]

Here's the scale, as explained to me by Jerry Yang himself, while drunk at a Yahoo party (back then they were trying to "blackmail" Microsoft into shelling out more $$ per share than YHOO is worth):

TQ of:

1 - You must be listing Microsoft typo domains
2 - Your domain traffic comes from Iraq
3 - You haven't bought Yahoo ads yet
4 - Some traffic from Google, why not buy Yahoo ads?
5 - Thank you for buying Yahoo ads!
6 - Your traffic comes from Chinese domains owned by Jerry's relatives
7 - Nice! Thank you for upgrading your Yahoo ad traffic account!
8 - Domains owned by Jerry Yang's portfolio
9 - Thank you for being a golden corporate sponsor of Yahoo!
10 - Owner of sex.com

[trader]

The TQ Scoring is quite odd to me and seems shrouded in mystery.

Some time ago my TQ score was roughly 2 to 4 for a few mos (not shown on chart), then started to move up in increments peaking at TQ 10 and stayed that high at a very nice 10 for a long time (at 10 for about 1 to 2-mos from what I recall). However, starting several weeks ago it started a long precipitous decline going from 10 and eroding all the way down to a 3. That also seems to have seriously impacted my revenue as my stats are up nicely compared to when I was a 10 but revenue appears little changed vs the lower traffic/clicks time when I was a 10.

I wish someone (Donny are you around) could explain this because I believe my actual traffic quality is likely basically the same during this entire TQ bull market and bear market.

Here is a screenshot

[vbigdeli]

Yahoo updates scores every two weeks.
min 100 clicks a day from everywhere(not only US).

[petrosc]

Yahoo updates scores every two weeks.
min 100 clicks a day from everywhere(not only US).

to correct what I said before, 100 clicks from the locations monetized by Yahoo feed (most non US/Ca are monetized by alternative feeds and are not considered for the TQ score)

[donsimon]

NameSniper sent me a PM about these questions, so I asked him to post the questions here so that everybody could see the answers at the same time. I'll try to answer as best as I know, and Acroplex, I got a good laugh at your list. Acroplex is probably the biggest fan of Yahoo's TQ score that I know of.

Yahoo implemented their TQ score about a year and a half ago. It is completely based on conversions to the advertiser. When you are using either Yahoo or Google they recommend that you put the conversion tracking code somewhere on your site so that they know when a conversion happens. Unfortunately not all advertisers put the code on their site and some of them that do, put it in places that nobody will ever get to. Yahoo uses about 50 categores for each domain, and each of those categories has a different conversion rate. The conversion rate is calculated from the Yahoo.com search engine. So the finance category may have a 1 in 100 conversion to have a tq of 10, but travel may have 1 in 500 for a 10.

I have found that if you get about 100 clicks a day for about 2 weeks, you will get a TQ score, but this is based on clicks going to Yahoo, not anything else.

One big difference between Yahoo's TQ system and Google's Smart Pricing, is that Yahoo actually tells us what your scores are. Also the TQ scores in most cases are very accurate and they are very helpful.

TQ scores come out once a week, usually on Thursday, but sometimes on Friday. We get TQ scores on a few different markets that Yahoo supports. The scores range from NA to a 10. NA means you don't have enough data. 1 being the worst score and 10 being the best.

Acroplex mentioned that sex.com would have a TQ of 10, to be honest with you I bet it wouldn't. You have to think about what converts when you own a domain. One of our customers had a generic "boat" domain, and we have a way with a domain with a high volume to get a TQ on that domain by itself. The TQ for the domain was only a 1, which may no sense to me, this was a perfect domain that was getting hundreds of clicks a day. So I called Yahoo and they couldn't help, so then I started calling a few of the advertisers, and they said they loved the traffic, but nobody had bought a boat yet. So they couldn't give it a good score. Are you kidding? So sometimes advertisers are idiots. But this is a great example when sometimes a perfect domain just doesn't work with a TQ score. But I would still buy the domain in a second.

Is there a score that you should maintain? I would love everybody to have a 10. But a 7 or higher would still be good. If you have a 4 or lower, somebody will be contacting you to work on improving your score or recommending other options.

One thing that we didn't talk about is what does your TQ effect? Your revenue. So let's say an advertiser is willing to pay $1.00 for a click. You have a TQ of 10, and you send a click, in theory the advertiser would pay the full $1.00 for that click. If you have a TQ of 7, and you send a click in theory the advertiser would only pay $0.70, but actually they would pay more, it's not really 10% for each point. A TQ of 7 may be $0.85, but I'm not 100% sure and it varies per category.

For people who don't have a score, all people without a score are averaged together for 1 score.

I guess that sums up the TQ system as I know it today.

Donny

[trader]

Hi Donny, I am disappointed you addressed others in your detailed post (and other earlier posts) but not myself even though my TQ scoring and major move up to a TQ 10 (and my staying at 10 for a long time), and subsequent precipitous drop from 10 is quite curious and worthy of comment, especially with my picture is worth a 1000 words screenshot.

The TQ Scoring is quite odd to me and seems shrouded in mystery.

Some time ago my TQ score was roughly 2 to 4 for a few mos (not shown on chart), then started to move up in increments peaking at TQ 10 and stayed that high at a very nice 10 for a long time (at 10 for about 1 to 2-mos from what I recall). However, starting several weeks ago it started a long precipitous decline going from 10 and eroding all the way down to a 3. That also seems to have seriously impacted my revenue as my stats are up nicely compared to when I was a 10 but revenue appears little changed vs the lower traffic/clicks time when I was a 10.

I wish someone (Donny are you around) could explain this because I believe my actual traffic quality is likely basically the same during this entire TQ bull market and bear market.

Here is a screenshot

[donsimon]

Trader - To be honest I didn't even see your post. Sorry. I also have no idea what your account is with us either. So send me a PM or an email and I can take a look at your account.

Donny

[trader]

Trader - To be honest I didn't even see your post. Sorry. I also have no idea what your account is with us either. So send me a PM or an email and I can take a look at your account.

Donny

OK, pm sent. Thanks.

[NameSniper.com]

NameSniper sent me a PM about these questions, so I asked him to post the questions here so that everybody could see the answers at the same time. I'll try to answer as best as I know, and Acroplex, I got a good laugh at your list. Acroplex is probably the biggest fan of Yahoo's TQ score that I know of.

Yahoo implemented their TQ score about a year and a half ago. It is completely based on conversions to the advertiser. When you are using either Yahoo or Google they recommend that you put the conversion tracking code somewhere on your site so that they know when a conversion happens. Unfortunately not all advertisers put the code on their site and some of them that do, put it in places that nobody will ever get to. Yahoo uses about 50 categores for each domain, and each of those categories has a different conversion rate. The conversion rate is calculated from the Yahoo.com search engine. So the finance category may have a 1 in 100 conversion to have a tq of 10, but travel may have 1 in 500 for a 10.

Thanks for the nice details.
Are they counting visitors to clicks or clicks to actual customers/buyers conversion? And does Yahoo decide appoints TQ score or advertisers?

I have found that if you get about 100 clicks a day for about 2 weeks, you will get a TQ score, but this is based on clicks going to Yahoo, not anything else.

Most likely on second thursday right?

One big difference between Yahoo's TQ system and Google's Smart Pricing, is that Yahoo actually tells us what your scores are. Also the TQ scores in most cases are very accurate and they are very helpful.

Yes, thats much more honest from Yahoo side because with Smart pricing only Google employees know how good do you perform or their advertisers know that too?
Yahoo assigns TQ score per portfolio basis, but does it mean taht I can devide my names into two separate portfolios, one with high performing names and the other with lower performance to concentrate on each of them separately and to not let my lower quality names affect my higher performing names revenue/TQ score?

Acroplex mentioned that sex.com would have a TQ of 10, to be honest with you I bet it wouldn't. You have to think about what converts when you own a domain. One of our customers had a generic "boat" domain, and we have a way with a domain with a high volume to get a TQ on that domain by itself. The TQ for the domain was only a 1, which may no sense to me, this was a perfect domain that was getting hundreds of clicks a day. So I called Yahoo and they couldn't help, so then I started calling a few of the advertisers, and they said they loved the traffic, but nobody had bought a boat yet. So they couldn't give it a good score. Are you kidding? So sometimes advertisers are idiots. But this is a great example when sometimes a perfect domain just doesn't work with a TQ score. But I would still buy the domain in a second.

Ok, but what can you do in case advertsiers are idiots, dont recognise a good domain names and set TQ score to 1?

Is there a score that you should maintain? I would love everybody to have a 10. But a 7 or higher would still be good. If you have a 4 or lower, somebody will be contacting you to work on improving your score or recommending other options.

What are those options, to optimize the name to make the CTR higher?

[Acro]

I came up with the TQ list as a joke

Donny is right, sex.com has no Google PR; other than the obvious brandability it appears that its traffic is questionable.

[donsimon]

NameSniper - After reading your comments it seemed to me that all of your questions were already answered. But I'll go ahead and answer each one at a time. I have have been reading too fast.

Thanks for the nice details.
Are they counting visitors to clicks or clicks to actual customers/buyers conversion? And does Yahoo decide appoints TQ score or advertisers?

The TQ score is based on the conversions from a click to the advertiser to a conversion for the advertiser. It has nothing to do with how many hits your domains get, it's all about clicks that go from your domains to the advertisers and if it converts for the advertiser. Yahoo decides the TQ scores, not the advertisers. I would probably say that 90% of them don't realize that Yahoo and Google use that conversion tracker for calculating TQ and Smart Pricing.

Most likely on second thursday right?

Yahoo puts out scores every week, it just depends on if you have enough to get a score. I've seen some people get a score in 1 day based on their volume.

Yes, thats much more honest from Yahoo side because with Smart pricing only Google employees know how good do you perform or their advertisers know that too?
Yahoo assigns TQ score per portfolio basis, but does it mean taht I can devide my names into two separate portfolios, one with high performing names and the other with lower performance to concentrate on each of them separately and to not let my lower quality names affect my higher performing names revenue/TQ score?

On the Google, the advertisers do not know from Google how well a particular domain converts. Yahoo does not assign TQ scores on a portfolio basis, it's on an account by default. There are ways that I could possible get it on a portfolio or domain basis, but it's not something that we really like to do. The TQ system was not designed to be able to game it by putting some domains in the bad portfolio and others in the good portfolio. Since Yahoo doesn't provide us domain level TQ scores, it's hard to say what is good and what is bad.

Ok, but what can you do in case advertsiers are idiots, dont recognise a good domain names and set TQ score to 1?

Who says advertisers are idiots? Aren't they the ones paying us? Are they idiots for paying us? Or are you saying they are idiots for not understanding where to put their conversion tracker? In the example I gave before, I couldn't really argue with the advertiser, that's what they considered to be a conversion, even though a conversion to them was about $75,000.

Here's another example, I have a friend that owns the domain of a former "file sharing" site. He gets about 50,000 hits a day, about 8-10k clicks a day and if he has the domain with us or any Yahoo based company he always gets a TQ of 1. If he sends it to a Google based feed, I think after smart shaving hits him he owes the parking company money, and after about 2 weeks they ask him to leave. What's wrong with the domain? Absoutely nothing. Pefect targeted traffic. One small problem, they all want something for "free". So the conversions are horrible. What can this person do, I told him to do some type of review site for all of the current file sharing sites. He did and it's doing very well now. The trick was now the surfer knows that they aren't getting something for free anymore and can make that decision beforehand.

What are those options, to optimize the name to make the CTR higher?

These options are things that your account manager will talk to you about. We look at all of your domains and try to find the ones that are causing the most problems and we focus on them. It could be as simple as changing the keyword, changing the colors, or maybe even asking you to remove certain domains if we can't do anything to improve the scores.

Hope all of this helps.

Donny

[NameSniper.com]

On the Google, the advertisers do not know from Google how well a particular domain converts. Yahoo does not assign TQ scores on a portfolio basis, it's on an account by default. There are ways that I could possible get it on a portfolio or domain basis, but it's not something that we really like to do. The TQ system was not designed to be able to game it by putting some domains in the bad portfolio and others in the good portfolio. Since Yahoo doesn't provide us domain level TQ scores, it's hard to say what is good and what is bad.

Ok, but then i guess that Yahoo installs a piece of code on every advertiser page in order to get conversion info?

Who says advertisers are idiots? Aren't they the ones paying us? Are they idiots for paying us? Or are you saying they are idiots for not understanding where to put their conversion tracker? In the example I gave before, I couldn't really argue with the advertiser, that's what they considered to be a conversion, even though a conversion to them was about $75,000.

I forgot to add "IF".

Here's another example, I have a friend that owns the domain of a former "file sharing" site. He gets about 50,000 hits a day, about 8-10k clicks a day and if he has the domain with us or any Yahoo based company he always gets a TQ of 1. If he sends it to a Google based feed, I think after smart shaving hits him he owes the parking company money, and after about 2 weeks they ask him to leave. What's wrong with the domain? Absoutely nothing. Pefect targeted traffic. One small problem, they all want something for "free". So the conversions are horrible. What can this person do, I told him to do some type of review site for all of the current file sharing sites. He did and it's doing very well now. The trick was now the surfer knows that they aren't getting something for free anymore and can make that decision beforehand.

So in this particular case he has setup a real page with file hosting service comparison information and then he has put Adsense or similar ads on that page instead of parking that domain name with you?
By the way from my expirience, expired file hosting service website traffic is indeed of a very low quality.

[donsimon]

It is up to the advertiser to put the code on their own sites. I've heard numbers from 10%-50% of the advertisers put the code on their sites.

The "file sharing" domain is a CPA/signup model now. No adsense at all.

Donny

[NameSniper.com]

Thanks for all info.

[xnx]

Are you kidding? So sometimes advertisers are idiots.
Donny

Donny you were the one that called advertisers idiots, I was wondering why you said it since the advertisers cannot set the TQ score

Thank you for the update on the TQ, finally understand it and Yahoo a lot better now. I guess no score is better than having a score of 1. Or is that not true ?

[donsimon]

nxn - I said "sometimes advertisers are idiots". The advertisers don't set the TQ score, but they are part of the TQ score. If they make a conversion impossible to achieve then the domain owner gets a lower score, that's if that domain owner or domain sends a lot of traffic to a partner advertiser.

No score is better that a 1.

Donny