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As I’ve mentioned before, Google and Yahoo have both updated its policy regarding online pharmacies advertising in North America through AdWords. If you don’t already know, here are the new policies (and it applies to Yahoo Search Marketing as well):

Only VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies will be allowed to advertise
We’ve made the decision to further restrict the ads we accept for online pharmacy sites in the U.S. and Canada. Starting at the end of this month, Google AdWords will only accept ads from online pharmacies in the U.S. that are accredited by the National Association Boards of Pharmacy VIPPS program, and from online pharmacies in Canada that are accredited by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA.)

Pharmacies can only target ads within their country
These pharmacies may only target ads to users in the country in which they are accredited. This policy change does not affect our online pharmacy policy for countries outside the U.S. and Canada.

Accordingly, we’ll no longer be using any 3rd party verifier of online pharmacies other than VIPPS and CIPA. AdWords advertisers who aren’t accredited by VIPPS or CIPA will no longer see their online pharmacy ads displayed once this policy change comes into effect

Once the new policies were officially announced, Google simply suspended all the accounts that didn’t meet the requirement and all ads from Canadian based pharmacies were blocked from showing in the US.

Yahoo, on the other hand, had a more gentle approach towards Canadian based online pharmacies that were advertising in the states. They first sent out emails noticing advertisers about the upcoming changes, and then they asked advertisers to voluntarily switch their geo-targeting to Canada instead of the US. But of course, the soft approach didn’t work (at least to most of the advertisers), therefore after a month since the new policies were announced, Yahoo had switched all Canadian based pharmacy accounts to target Canada only without informing the account owners (fair enough, they saw that coming anyways).

There is a huge difference between Google and Yahoo’s methods. Google blocks ads, while Yahoo restricts geo-targeting options. Even though the end result might be similar, Yahoo’s way actually still leaves room for Canadian online pharmacies to have their ads showing up in the US.

Since Yahoo is only restricting advertisers’ geo-targeting options and doesn’t have a designated system to block ads, any search query from the US that contains the geo-modifier “Canada” will trigger Canadian ads that are only targeting Canada.

For example, if someone in the US searches for the keyword phrase “Canada online pharmacy”, it will trigger ads that are only targeting Canada to show up in the search result as well (assuming the advertiser has the keyword “online pharmacy” or “Canada online pharmacy in its keyword list).

How long will it be before Yahoo figure out this glitch (or Yahoo already knows, but they just don’t give a @#$%, I doubt they really wanted to implement this new policy at the first place anyways)? No one knows. But this “issue” will probably get fixed once the Yahoo-Bing alliance is completed. So, Canadian online pharmacies, reap all the profit now while you still can.

Pitstop Media offers ROI based internet marketing services. If you need help with PPC management or PPC optimization please contact us for a free, no obligation quote. We’ve helped companies reduce their paid advertising cost by as much as 48% and increase AdWords conversion rates by as much as 410%. See our internet marketing case studies.