Yahoo Held on to its Search Advertiers in Q4, but is Watching Them Leave in Q1 2009

Yahoo appeared to be gaining some ground on Google at the end of 2008, with Google losing many search advertisers and Yahoo at least maintaining. However, that situation has dramatically reversed in the last several months. Since January 2009 Yahoo has lost 20,000 advertisers in the Top 500K Keywords, almost 15% of its search advertisers.

These losses appear to be across the board, including both large advertisers and small advertiers. In January, over 400 Yahoo advertisers purchased over a thousand keywords in the Top 500,000, by March that number was down to less than 300. Further, Yahoo's share of big Google advertisers (those spending more than $5,000 per month on search) is now down to around 50%.

Yahoo Advertising Volume Falls by 25% in the last Two Months

The volume of keywords purchased from Yahoo on the Top 500K Keywords has plummeted of late. Paid search advertising in the United States looks to have declined by 25% in Q1 2009, from 4.7 million ads in November 2008 to 3.3 million ads in March of 2009. This decline in Yahoo search advertising has been driven by both loss of advertisers as well as reduced advertising purchases by retained advertisers.

For data on Yahoo's Biggest Advertisers see AdQuant's monthly Top 100 Reports.

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