Yahoo recently announced that February 5, 2007 will bring a new quality scoring mechanism to the ad-ranking system that determines where ads are displayed on Yahoo SERPs.  The old model, which was strictly bid-price based, allowed irrelevant (and often worthless) ads from topping sponsored listings simply because those ads had higher bid amounts.

The new ranking system, which is explained in more detail here, has some advertisers revisiting the content of their search ads.  Not only does it mean that some advertisers will lose their top positions, but it also means that some ads that have ranked lower in the past will suddenly get to shine on top.

To help advertisers create the best possible ads, Yahoo has recently posted a list of 5 best practices on its blog:

1. Make sure keywords appear in ads.  Yahoo has an "Insert Keyword" feature to help with this.
2. Make sure you're targeting the right keywords.
3. Test, test, and test again.  Some ads will perform better than others.
4. Use the "Exclude Keyword" feature to better target which searches your ad matches with.
5. Don't just review your ad content - have a look at your advertising budget and see if it needs revising.

Most of these are pretty common sense.  But it's not a bad idea to remind folks about some of the obvious things, especially when you're dealing with a change as big as this one.  I think the change is good for the simple fact that it will force some advertisers to make their ads more worthwhile.

And that's never a bad thing.