Search engine marketing specialist Richard Ball has been critical of Yahoo’s Search Marketing business. Their practice of placing search ads on their distribution network, even when advertisers opt out of content matching for their campaigns, has led to some of Ball’s clients receiving lots of clicks through sites he calls “low quality” Yahoo distribution partners.

Yahoo does not offer an option for advertisers to place ads only on their properties. Ball thinks that the issue is so much of a problem that he has chosen to end his status as a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador. Ball said, “Seems odd that you can’t buy only search.yahoo.com ads via Yahoo! Search Marketing. You have to accept ad distribution to their partner network, which is rife with syndication fraud.”