Yahoo search ad descriptions to be shortened

From June this year, Yahoo will be setting a new cut-off point for the number of characters allowed in its search ad descriptions. Yahoo currently allows an ad entry with a maximum of 190 characters per ad, but this will be more than halved to 70 characters.

by Helen Leggatt

The move, says Yahoo in its blog, is to promote better ad copy which will perform better for advertisers, attracting more enthusiastic customers, and give users an improved experience.

As part of the move to more succinct ad text, a short description will be compulsory as from May, 2007. At present advertisers can choose between either a long or short entry, or both.

However, from June onwards, all Yahoo ads will be truncated to just 70 characters, with the cut-off point occurring at the end of the nearest word to 70 characters.

Advertisers are urged to revise their ad copy in line with the shorter character allowance to ensure the performance of their ads, and their ranking, isn’t compromised by a valuable advertising message being cut off in its prime.

It should also be noted that Yahoo will still require punctuation at the end of a description, and this counts towards the character count. If no punctuation, such as a period, question mark or exclamation point is present a period will automatically be added. "We have found that users perceive descriptions with complete sentences as more trustworthy and are more likely to purchase from a client that they associate with quality," comments a Yahoo manager on the blog.

Ad title length won’t be affected, remaining at 40 characters, but Yahoo’s blog also makes reference to a proposed shortening of display URL’s to 35 characters.