• April 9, 2007

Yahoo is shortening the allowable length of its search ad descriptions from 190 characters max to 70 characters or fewer. The move, it says, is in response to experience that more tightly written ads perform better.

In an announcement on its blog, the company advises advertisers that starting in June, ad descriptions longer than 70 characters may automatically be cut off in Yahoo Sponsored Search results to the nearest complete word, followed by an ellipsis. Long descriptions will continue to be shown on some external distribution partner Web sites.

Truncated ads, Yahoo warns, may result in a lower ranking in search results because they may be less relevant, and therefore get a lower Quality Index score.