A couple days ago, Tamar reported that Yahoo Search Marketing raised the minimum credit card amount to $250 for the Yahoo Product Submit program. Yahoo then sent us a statement, calling this change “in line with the industry’s competitive norm.” Now, after being offline for two days, I come back to several threads complaining about Yahoo charging more but offering less services.

Besides for the spike in the minimum charges for Product Submit customers, their fees are going up as well. A WebmasterWorld thread and Search Engine Watch Forums thread has an email from Yahoo showing that Yahoo will spike up the cost per click (CPC) by 25% in all categories in the Product Submit category. Let me quote you the email:

No wonder Yahoo increased the minimum credit card charges to $250, it will be required with a 25% CPC increase.

To make things worse, on the Yahoo Search Marketing side, I saw a WebmasterWorld thread reporting an email being sent to Yahoo advertisers. The email says that for some advertisers, telephone support will be discontinued and they will step up the email support. Here is part of that email:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums and the second WebmasterWorld.