On Monday, Yahoo! flipped the switch on it's new quality scoring system for search advertising.  The score, which uses historical and projected performance as a metric, is part of the ranking mechanism that determines how high ads appear in search results and throughout the YPN.  It's only been a few days but reactions are already coming in from a few advertisers.

Search Engine Roundtable has posted a couple of those reactions as well as links to the forum discussions where folks are talking.

So far, the reaction seems to be positive.  Both of the threads SERoundtable was able to find have been positive reactions to the new ranking system, and although no one is making final statements just yet, I have a feeling there will be more of the same in the coming days and weeks.

Why?  Because the advertisers who care enough to make sure they are producing quality ads should see positive results - unless Yahoo! has screwed something up.  Ultimately that's what the new ranking system is all about.  Better ads get more clicks and more clicks make Yahoo (and publishers) more money.

The people who won't like the new system are the people who've been buying their way into top positions in the past.  The advertisers bidding high on popular keywords so they can display their ads for irrelevant products won't like the new system at all.  Because, in theory anyway, they won't be able to buy that top spot anymore.  They'll actually have to take some time to revisit their ads and make them better.

The other thing that I think is important to keep in mind, not only with Yahoo's new system, but also with any new product launch, is that the people who usually talk the loudest are the ones who aren't happy.  Do you tell more people when you've had a good experience at, say, a restaurant… or when you've had a bad one?  Unhappy and irritated people generally talk more about their feelings.  So we may well see a flood of negative commentary come from this announcement.  But it should be taken with that concept in mind.

As long as the system isn't fundamentally flawed, I don't see how it could be anything but beneficial to the whole Yahoo! Network.