Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador Program Discontinued

Kind of a sad day here at West Virginia’s search engine marketing headquarters.  I received this email last night from Yahoo!:

Dear Ambassador,

As a result of Yahoo!’s upcoming transition to Microsoft Advertising adCenter’s search platform, we will be discontinuing the Yahoo! Ambassador Program effective September 30, 2010.

Based on our current plans, after September 30, 2010, we will no longer accept new advertisers for Yahoo! Sponsored Search.

Yahoo! ended the program back in 2008 for all intents and purposes by not accepting new Ambassadors, so I guess this shouldn’t give me any pause, but it’s just kind of depressing that there is no longer any link to the very first pay per click provider.  I remember working on GoTo.com campaigns back in 2001 before it was rebranded as Overture, before that was bought by YSM.  It’s kind of amazing if you think about how Yahoo! devalued their search so completely through an amazing series of incompetent missteps.

For advertisers, your life gets somewhat easier.  If you weren’t with YSM before, you’re not going to be able to open an account after this month.  Really, there’s  not much point in doing it now any way since that doesn’t leave you a lot of time to get a robust campaign started and running.  Starting October 1, you’ll be able to reach more than 9 out of 10 US searchers with paid search advertising by just using Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.

As my final tribute to those salad days before Jerry Yang acted as though his only goal in life was to tank Yahoo!’s stock, I once again provide a link to my favorite and the only set of music videos featuring the personification of the three largest U.S. paid search providers, Search Engine Rap Battle.  I’ve always felt a little guilty that perhaps I played a role in Yahoo! not winning the vote tally against Google, which I thought it deserved to do.  When voting was still open I forwarded the site to my reps at Google who had not yet seen it and later told me it spread through their offices like wildfire.  Perhaps Googlers came out en masse to ensure a win for their team?

Anyway, RIP, Yahoo! Search Marketing.  I shall step outside and pour some of my diet mountain dew on the ground.