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Digital Coupons Boost Coupon Use
The use of coupons increased in 2009, thanks partly to the surge of digital coupons, according to Coupons.com. More...

Bing Boosts its Market Share in January
According to three major reports, Microsoft's Bing was the search engine that had the strongest January, while Google and Yahoo! struggled. More...

Life Insurance Searches Soar in 2009
The Internet is increasingly becoming a go-to source of information for life insurance, according to comScore. More...

Chrome Gains While Firefox, IE Lose in January
Google’s Chrome Web browser broke the 5 percent mark in January, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox both lost market share, according to Net Applications. More...

Worldwide Search Market Grew 46% in 2009, Bing Boost Microsoft
According to recent figures released by comScore, more than 131 billion searches were conducted by users around the globe in December, marking a huge year-over-year increase. The Russian Federation in particular saw enormous gains in the number of searches conducted during the year. More...

Ban of 5% of AdWords Advertisers Pointed to Strong Q4 for Google
On Dec. 3, Google banned more than an estimated 30,000 advertisers who utilized its AdWords system, according to Chicago-based AdGooroo. More...

Google Tops All Search Engines in December
According to three separate companies, Google sat atop the U.S. search engine heap in December. More...

Internet to Play Major Role in Money-Saving New Year's Resolutions
Performics recently revealed the findings from its 2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study' which includes a widespread emphasis on saving money in the New Year. Consumers seem set to utilize the Internet to help them toward keeping to this goal. More...

Google is Top Company, Brand in November; Americans Spent 2.75 Days Online
The Nielsen Company released some data from November earlier this week and revealed that Google was the top parent company, while the average U.S. user spent 2.75 days online during the month. More...

Google Extends Lead Amongst Search Engines, Ask.com Also Gains in November
Experian Hitwise recently laid out its search engine rankings for November and, to no one’s surprise, Google remains the top dog, with Yahoo! and Bing losing ground, and Ask.com gaining a bit. More...

Bing Has Better Click-Rate than Google, Yahoo!
According to online advertising network Chitika, Bing is maintaining its superior ad click-through rates over Yahoo! and Google. More...

Small Businesses Spending More on Search, Less on Google
According to data from WebVisible, a local advertising service company, small businesses are allocating more of their budgets toward search advertising in the third quarter of 2009. More...

Bing, Google, Longer Keywords and Top Search Terms in October
According to recent data released by Experian Hitwise, Bing gained market share in October while Google and Yahoo! lost a bit of the search pie. More...

Michael Jackson, Balloon Boy, a Helpful PPC Campaign and Halloween
According to a recent report released by Experian Hitwise, Michael Jackson saw a resurgence in postmortem online popularity during Halloween and was joined by Balloon Boy, Tinker Bell and Cat Woman, among others. More...

Bing Gains Market Share Again in October
In October, Bing recovered some of the market share it lost in September, according to Web analytics company StatCounter. More...

Local Search Leads to More Offline Action
According to a white paper published by TMP Directional Marketing and comScore, U.S. Internet users who conducted online local business searches are likely to actually end up in a store in person. More...

Google Gains Market Share in September, Bing Stays Steady
Despite early indicators from StatCounter and Net Applications, Bing appears to have held steady in September, though Google conquered more market share during the month. More...

Bing Losing Steam Already?
While August was a good month for Bing, Microsoft’s new pride and joy, early data seems to point to a downhill September for the search engine. More...

Bing Has Big August, Google Still in Control
According to recent figures released by Nielsen, Google remained atop the list of U.S. search providers in August, though Bing experienced huge month-over-month growth. More...

Google Gobbles Up Lots of Time in Brazil, India
According to a recent comScore report, Google's share of total minutes spent online is more than three times higher in Brazil and India, while users in other global markets use the search engine's sites more than the average worldwide user. More...

Google Leads Global Search Market, Europe Searches Most
According to a report released earlier this week by comScore, Google topped the worldwide search market in July, handling 76.7 billion searches during the month. More...

Google Wins July and Users' Loyalty
Google has won yet another month of the search engine battle for market share, according to Nielsen. More...

Google is Top Parent Company, Web Brand
Google was both the top parent company and the top Web brand in June, according to Nielsen Online. More...

Microsoft Gains in Search Market Share Thanks to Bing
It looks like we finally have some official data about Bing's market share, and it's good news for Microsoft, which was the only major search engine to gain in June. More...

Bing: More Than 5% of the Market Already?
While "official" June search engine market share figures from the likes of comScore and Nielsen haven't been released yet, early indicators from other sources seem to indicate a strong start for Microsoft's Bing. More...

Bing. You Are Now Free to Move about The Internet
As one of the few people in the internet world who still watches a lot of TV, last night I saw my first commercial for Bing. Today, as an experiment I decided to ask a few different people what they thought of Bing. A former Microsoft... More...

SEO is Most Important for Generating Conversions
Nearly half of all respondents to a recent survey conducted by Forbes said that search engine optimization is the most effective online marketing tactic for generating conversions online. More...

Craigslist, David Carradine Among Popular Search Terms
For the four weeks ending June 6, 2009, "craigslist" was the top overall search term, according to Hitwise. More...

Bing Madness Over Already?
Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has certainly made its presence known. Though its unveiling was mostly overshadowed by Google Wave’s introduction, the new engine has been received quite warmly from many users and pundits. More...

Google Top Parent Company, FullTiltPoker.com Stickiest Brand
According to the latest figures released by Nielsen Online, Google remained the top U.S. parent company in April, while FullTiltPoker.com remained the stickiest brand. More...

Google Dominates Canada
Though some haughty Americans may smirk at the mention of their northern neighbors, Hitwise has released figures indicating that Google is even more dominant in Canada than it is in the U.S. More...

Think Outside of the Box, the Google Box!
It’s no secret in the Internet marketing world that Google is the search engine powerhouse. However, because of this, it means greater competition and higher Cost Per Clicks. More...

Craigslist is Top Search Term
According to recent figures posted by Hitwise, “craigslist” was the top overall search term for the four weeks ending May 16, 2009. More...

Google Continues Search Dominance, Ad Coverage Wanes
According to the latest figures released by comScore qSearch, Google increased its share of searches in the U.S. in April, while all its major competitors lost share or remained stagnant. More...

Alternative Online Advertising to Grow 9%
Online display advertising will be the only online advertising channel to see cutbacks in 2009 and 2010, while all other channels will see major growth, according to the Jack Myers Publishing in a recent forecast. More...

Display Advertising Benefits from Synergy with Search Marketing
Earlier this week, iProspect released a report titled, “Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study,” which concluded that while online display advertising is effective on its own, search engine marketing enhances its value. More...

Google Market Share, Query Lengths Grow in April
According to the latest figures released by Hitwise, Google’s U.S. search market share isn’t the only thing growing: apparently, queries are getting longer and longer. More...

The Return of Jeeves (in the UK)
After spending three years in retirement, Jeeves has returned to Ask.com, compelling the search engine to revert back to its original name, Ask Jeeves - in the U.K. More...

Google, Ask.com Gain in March
Google and Ask.com gobbled up more of the search pie in March, while the other three major search engines lost ground, according to recent figures released by Nielsen Online. More...

Google Chrome is the Fastest, But Does it Matter?
Safety tests and market share are nice, but everybody loves a good race. More...

Google Launches Free Music Service in China to Gain on Baidu
Earlier this week, Google unveiled a post-beta music service that allows Internet users in China to stream or download music at no cost, thanks to the ad-supported model it is based upon. More...

Paid Placement Took Lion’s Share of 2008 Search Marketing Dollars
According to a report from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) based on research conducted by Radar Research, the vast majority of search engine marketing dollars were spent on paid placement in 2008. More...

Hulu, Tax Sites Gain in February
According to the most recent figures released by comScore Media Metrix, Hulu saw its online U.S. audience surge in February, thanks to its well-received Super Bowl advertisement. Meanwhile, tax season lifted traffic to tax-related Web sites. More...

Craigslist Tops MySpace
"Craigslist" topped "myspace" as the top search term in the U.S. for the first time in three years earlier this month, according to a blog post by Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise. More...

The Content Conundrum
Every few years those attempting to predict the latest interactive trend will come out and make a statement like “Content is king.” In Google’s case that statement might read “Context is king,” and for the fake blogs, it would be... More...

Opportunity Cost, or Opportunity Lost?
We've all seen the rise and fall of various trends, whether through online marketing or traditional advertising. Those that invest their time and resources into testing new methods consistently prove themselves as industry leaders. More...

Google Starts 2009 Right Where it Left Off
Nielsen Online and comScore qSearch agree that Google was the top search engine in January, and they nearly agreed on exactly how much market share the search giant claimed during the first month of 2009. More...

Google Maps Overtakes MapQuest
For the first time ever, Google Maps has overtaken long-time online maps leader MapQuest in January - at least, according to initial reports from comScore, as verified by Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land. More...

Optimize your way to PPC success
If you ask the top pay per click marketers what is one of the factors that have allowed them to achieve their success it’s their ability to optimize campaigns. Being able to adapt to the changing demands of the market can determine whether a PPC campaign will be successful or just a drain on your budget. More...

Finding Balance in Search Advertising for 2009
Corporate budget cuts during recessionary environments are often felt first by advertising initiatives, leading to an increased scrutiny on performance-based metrics such as return-on-advertising-spend (ROAS). More...

Macro Economics of Search Advertising
Scenario: Supply of your product/services is still going strong, but demand has begun to decline as consumers reduce discretionary spending. When the terms ‘recession’ and ‘depression’ are being debated as to which one best describes the economy, good advertisers know it is time to change focus. More...

Google Wins and Gains in December
Google drew 72.07 percent of the U.S. search market in December 2008, according to Hitwise's most recent figures. For the overall year, Google boasted 69.48 percent of the market. More...

Mortgage CPC Plummets
Efficient Frontier recently released its U.S. cost-per-click data for the month of December 2008. More...

Search Advertising Slowed in 2008
Though Internet advertising has been vulnerable to the overall economic decline, search advertising has become more desirable for marketers. Still, U.S. search advertising saw its annual spending increase slow down a bit from its 2007 growth. More...

Firefox Passes 20 Percent, IE Continues to Shed
According to the most recent Net Applications figures, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has cracked the 20 percent mark in terms of worldwide market share last month More...

Google Wins November
Google claimed yet another search victory in November 2008 when it handled 64.1 percent of all searches in the U.S., according to Nielsen Online. More...

Mahalo Answers Ups the Ante
Mahalo, the human-powered search engine, unveiled its human- and incentive-powered Mahalo Answers this week, which highlights the importance of questions and answers on the Internet and shows how far the model is from being finished. More...

Google Not as Trusted
Google is suffering from “big company syndrome,” according to Dr. Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute. More...

Pay Per Click Quality Scores 3 Key Factors
One of the most enticing aspects of Pay Per Click Marketing has been the ability to achieve high search positioning results through bidding top dollar on specific keywords. More...

Google’s Fast-Risers of 2008
Google recently released their list of the top 10 fastest growing search terms of 2008, compared to 2007. More...

Google Gains in October
Google had another good month in October, according to comScore and Hitwise. Though their figures are different, they are agreed upon Google’s continued display of growth and strength. More...

Google is Top Parent Company, EA Online is Stickiest Brand
The most recent figures released by Nielsen Online show that Google was the top parent company in October, while Electronic Arts Online was the stickiest brand. More...

Top Searches of 2008: Ask, Yahoo, AOL
Ask.com, Yahoo! and AOL recently released various lists of top searches for 2008. Britney Spears, “Dictionary” and questions about how to get pregnant were popular. More...

the end of
After patching up 11 vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.0, 12 vulnerabilities for Firefox 2.0 and announcing the end of "end of life" plan for Firefox 2.0, Mozilla has capped a busy couple weeks with the unveiling of "tear away" tabs. More...

Feedback Not Failure!
Throughout my career, I have been fortunate enough to work with some incredibly successful individuals. I have learned some important lessons that have had a profound effect on my own life and marketing. More...

The State of the Browser Wars
The dust from Google Chrome's arrival has long since settled, so it's time to refocus for a bit on the two current big boys in the browser wars: Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. More...

How Long is Your Pay Per Click Keyword Tail?
With the increase in Pay Per Click (PPC) marketers, many top tier keywords have become saturated with competition More...

Google Wins September
As if there was any doubt, Google handily won the search “war” in September, according to figures released on Monday by Nielsen Online. More...

Finance CPC Drops
Recent figures released by Efficient Frontier show that the “Total Finance” category’s average cost-per-click (CPC) in the U.S. has dropped nearly 23 percent from August to September. More...

Consumers Research Products and Services Online
A recent study released by Universal McCann highlights the importance of online research to active adult Web users around the globe. More...

Platform-A Tops Yahoo, Google
Recent figures released by comScore indicate that AOL’s Platform-A advertising network retained its top spot on the list of the top 50 ad networks in the U.S. by unique visitor in August. More...

Ask.com Looks Different (Again)
Ask.com took yet another step towards revamping its interface and performance on Monday, about a year after its widely covered 3-D interface was introduced. More...

eBay is Top Paid Search Term
Hitwise recently reported the top search terms for the month of August in the U.S. “eBay” and “eBay.com” were the top two search terms. More...

Google Challenged by Baidu In Asia
It’s no secret that Google is the undisputed king of search in the states, as well as in many other markets worldwide. More...

Google Chrome Was More Popular Back Then
Now that much of the dust has settled, it seems that Google Chrome’s initial charm has worn off a bit. More...

Google Wins Another Month
The most recent figures released by Hitwise indicate that Google gained more ground in the search market in August, displaying big growth compared to the same month last year. More...

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 Launched for Developers
In the dust trailing behind the big news of Google’s Chrome browser stood the unveiling of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 for developers. More...

Google Chrome Market Share Hovers Around 1%
There were various updates concerning Google Chrome’s market share in the browser realm late last week following its September 2nd release date More...

Google + Verizon = Reconciliation?
Google and Verizon have been enemies in recent times, as Google lobbied to break the iron grip that wireless carriers have on the access third parties can have to their subscribers. More...

Google Gains, Dominates Another Month
No matter who you ask, Google dominated the U.S. search market in July. According to comScore qSearch, Google Sites handled 61.9% of all queries during July, a 0.4-point increase from June’s 61.5% share. More...

What's in a Name
Not long after we hit the send button last week, Google announced a major change to the way their Quality Score mechanism works. Quality Score changes, both from the actual mechanical modifications but more... More...

The Return of Click Arbitrage... Sort of
Two weeks ago we did a series about the two face of quality score, with the focus being two of the seemingly motivating factors behind Google's now infamous metric. The first is strategic and long term - building a... More...

Google Owns the U.K.
In June, Google cracked the 3/4 mark in the U.K. search market by handling 75.3% of all queries conducted in the European country. More...

Online Searching Increases in Popularity
According to a recent report released by Pew Internet & American Life Project, a lot more Internet users are using search engines on a daily basis today compared to 2002. More...

The World of Traffic That Exists Outside of Google
Over the last few weeks, Google has undoubtedly been on the war path with many affiliate marketers. They have shut down a huge number of pay per click marketing campaigns without any explanation or reason given. More...

Lessons in Cuil
Yahoo and Microsoft, the former the incumbent in the online space before being displaced by Google, the latter, the incumbent in the software and whose name has become synonymous with technology domination, both... More...

The Two Faces of Quality Score
When Google first introduced the quality score, they went to beyond normal lengths, for Google that is, to explain the rationale behind the release, even informing advertisers in advance. Subsequent quality score... More...

Google’s Search Lead Can’t Help Stock Price
Google continued to lead the search market by a large margin in June, but this encouraging information couldn’t prevent Google’s stock price from sliding late last week. More...

Google Gets Parked Domain Troubles
Google’s parked domain advertising activities have long been criticized, but the time may have finally arrived for the search giant to feel some sort of consequence for its gray-area dealings. More...

What Does A Possible Microsoft-Yahoo Merger Mean To You, Search Engine Marketer?
Last year Google generated $18.12 billion in revenue while its chief pay per click rival Yahoo added $7.12 billion in revenue to its balance sheet. More...

Phishing in Google Calendar
Back in April, Elinor Mills, blogger at CNET News.com, highlighted spam that was utilizing Google Calendar. More...

Google, EA Online Are Top Brands
Google had the largest unique audience in May, while Electronic Arts Online was the stickiest brand, according to Nielsen Online. More...

Google + MacFarlane = Fear for TV?
It is far too early to proclaim the death of traditional television as we know it, but Google’s recent partnership with Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane does nothing to comfort TV networks, or Hollywood movie studios for that matter. More...

Google Continues Lead in Search
According to both comScore qSearch and Nielsen Online, Google has maintained its lead in the U.S. search market in May 2008. More...

Google and Yahoo: IM Partners in the Making?
Tucked away under the "Terms of the Agreement" section of Yahoo! press release, announcing its search advertising partnership with Google, is this little gem: "In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users." More...

CNN.com Beats Google
A recent study conducted by Performics, a division of Google’s DoubleClick, shows that 57% of the 500 respondents indicated that they used CNN.com to get their video news. More...

Google Leads Search in U.K.
According to the latest figures released by comScore qSearch 2.0, Google leads the U.K. search market by a wide margin. The list includes the likes of eBay, Facebook, Bebo, and Amazon More...

Google Gets Obama’s Vote
According to numbers contained in Federal Election Commission filings, presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s campaign seems to have confidence in Google’s advertising power. More...

Google Claims Another Big #1 Spot
Good news just isn’t in the cards for Yahoo! these days. More...

CPC Data for April
Efficient Frontier recently unveiled the average cost-per-click information, by vertical, observed during April 2008 in the U.S. The "mortgage" category saw the biggest change from March, followed by "auto finance". More...

Not So Long Tail
August of this year will mark the four year anniversary of Google going public, in many ways the tipping point for Internet advertising as we know it today. Four years ago, what existed? Internet life focused around... More...

Nielsen Online: Google Stagnant
The latest figures released by Nielsen Online show that while more queries were conducted in March 2008 compared to February, Google’s share of the search pie remained the same, while Yahoo! and MSN/Windows Live grabbed bigger shares. More...

Only 1% Say They Have Clicked on a Mobile Banner Ad
A recent study conducted by Forrester Research revealed that the mobile advertising market still has a ways to go before marketers can depend on it the way they have come to depend upon traditional Web marketing. More...

Google is Not Done Dominating the Search World
While Google remains a virtual equivalent to anything related to the word or idea of “search,” it might be easy to overlook its current moves to ratchet up its dominance both in the states and overseas. More...

Bird’s Eye View of the Web in March
Nielsen Online and comScore Media Metrix offered various rankings and data concerning the Internet, from a broader perspective More...

Searchers: Smarter, Lazier, Both?
A recent study published by iProspect (in conjunction with JupiterResearch) reveals that searchers are feeling less and less adventurous in their pursuit of good search results. More...

Google is Stronger Than Ever
The most recent figures released by Hitwise show that Google’s dominance in search has reached its highest peak. More...

Finance Category Sees CPC Increase
It’s expected that major economic trends will be reflected in various types of online data. Average cost-per-click (CPC) data from March 2008 released by Efficient Frontier confirms this, as various finance-related categories saw relatively large month-to-month jumps. More...

Engagement and Conversational Advertising On Social Networks
I came across an article on CCNMoney.com earlier this week relating to slide.com which was founded by Max Levchin. More...

Yahoo Answers Handles Majority of Questions Asked Online
Hitwise recently reported on the traffic details for question and answer Web sites. Not surprisingly, Yahoo! Answers received the bulk of this traffic, with a few other sites lending a hand to curious users looking to take advantage of user-generated wisdom of crowds More...

Power to The People - Part 2
Despite it being the largest corporate employer and having no shortage of detractors, Wal-Mart doesn't come close to qualifying as a monopoly. Granted, in many areas, especially rural, their presence has greatly reduced the number... More...

Yahoo, Google, Microsoft are Top U.S. Web Properties
The latest figures released by comScore indicate that Yahoo was the Web property that attracted the most unique visitors in January 2008 in the U.S. More...

Baidu Begins Testing Hi
While Baidu holds a strong leadership position in China’s search engine market, holding a 60.1% share at the end of the fourth quarter of 2007 (to Google’s 25.9% share), it has yet to set foot in the instant messaging market in its homeland. More...

Google Tops U.K. List in January
A recent report released by comScore World Metrix showed that Google Sites attracted the largest audience of unique visitors in the U.K. during the month of January. More...

Google, Yahoo, Ask.com Gain in January
January brought no surprises for the top seven search engines in the U.S. Of course, if you're like the vast majority of online searchers, no rankings have changed, though market share figures have fluctuated slightly. More...

Google Topples Microsoft in Canada
Recent numbers released by comScore Media Metrix indicates that Google was the most visited online property in Canada in January More...

Made for Yahoo Feed Sites Under Scrutiny
In addition to the writers strike ending, the flurry of activity surrounding the potential acquisition of Yahoo also pushed another, and in this case much more relevant to our industry than the writers strike, piece of news to the... More...

Click Fraud Grows
Click Forensics, Inc. recently released its Click Fraud Index for the fourth quarter of 2007. Click fraud for the pay-per-click industry reached 16.6% during the last quarter of last year, the highest rate observed since the index was launched at the end of 2006 More...

Top Gaining Internet Properties, Categories, Search Engines in 2007
Recent figures released by comScore highlight the top gaining Web properties, categories, and search engines. More...

Yahoo! Amidst Ad Appeal
Amidst all the hoopla concerning Microsoft's proposal to Yahoo, and Google's ensuing response, it becomes easy to forget what all the fuss is about. More...

Google is Top Parent Company, FullTiltPoker.com is Stickiest
According to recent figures released by Nielsen Online, Google remained the top parent company in the U.S. in December, while FullTiltPoker.com continued to be the stickiest brand. More...

Baidu is Top Dog in China, Third Worldwide
Baidu is to China what Google is to the U.S. In other words, while Google has a stranglehold on the U.S. search market, it has nothing on Baidu in China. More...

Google’s Search Share Drops in December
Google handled 56.3% of all U.S. search queries in December, which was a drop from November’s 57.7% share. Its searches per user also decreased from 40.8 in November to 37.9 in December. More...

Mobile Search: The New Frontier
Recent figures released by The Kelsey Group expect U.S. mobile search revenues to reach $1.4 billion by 2012. In 2007 this figure was $33.2 million, and 2008 is expected to see a figure of around $102.3 million. More...

Wikia Search Disappoints, Wales Defends
Regardless of who is responsible for the incredible hype that surrounded Wikia Search, the search engine that has been anticipated for over a year was welcomed with frowns and disappointment. More...

Google Tops November Rankings
According to the latest figures from Nielsen Online, Google retained its familiar spot atop the search engine rankings for November 2007. More...

Search Engines Attract Self-Searchers
A recent report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicated that 47% of U.S. adult Web users have searched for information about themselves More...

Yahoo Trumps Google…in Japan
According to comScore World Metrix, Yahoo! finished above Google to be hailed as the top Japanese online property in October 2007, in terms of unique visitors. More...

Evolution of the Arbitrager
The beauty and curse of the internet, especially internet advertising, arises from the little to no barriers to entry. More...

Britney, WWE, Paris Top 2007 Yahoo Searches
Yahoo! has released its top ten search terms for 2007, and Britney Spears has retained her throne at the top of the list. Her public downfall ... More...

Google Increases Its Lead in October
The most recent comScore figures show that Google led the search engine rankings yet again in October 2007. More...

G.cn = Google.cn
Apparently, Google’s minimalist approach to search does not pertain exclusively to its home page. In China, Google has slimmed down its Google.cn domain name to G.cn. More...

Google’s SearchMash Uses Flash and Snap
For those who are unfamiliar with SearchMash, it is Google’s small, relatively unknown alternative search engine. More...

Worldwide Search
Recent figures released by comScore’s qSearch 2.0 service shed some light on the global state of the search realm. It should not be a surprise that Google is faring quite well in areas outside of the states. More...

Google Wins in September
Google topped the list of search providers in the U.S. during the month of September, once again dominating the field. More...

Yahoo Lists Top Costume Searches
It may not be nearly as significant or interesting as the monthly search engine rankings, but Yahoo!’s listing of the top TV-related Halloween costume searches is revealed to the public for the taking. After all, it is nearing that wonderful time of tricks and treats. More...

Top Search Terms for September
The latest Hitwise figures concerning the top 10 search terms in 10 categories were released recently. MySpace and PayPal appear to be holding onto their popularity. More...

A Local Dilemma - Part 2
If you read Part 1, you will have learned of a great gym, but more importantly, of a challenge that it and many local businesses face, especially service based ones where foot traffic alone won't make the... More...

Yahoo Should Take Drastic Measures
Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, thinks that Yahoo! would be worth a lot more if they either broke apart their online businesses or conducted a facelift, which might even include turning its back on its search engine mainstay. More...

Google Leads Search Field in August
According to the latest figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings, Google handled the majority of all Web queries online in the U.S. in August. Yet again, the list was absent of any surprises. More...

Google Performs “Poorly” in the U.S.
Uptime monitoring company Pingdom recently listed Google’s downtime in 32 countries, and to some people’s surprise, the U.S. fared relatively poorly. Brazil, of all countries, experienced the least downtime, while Sweden experienced the most. More...

Google Ready and Willing to Comply With Canada
In August, Privacy Commissioner in Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, expressed major concern over Google’s Street View venture in major Canadian cities. More...

Google CPA Optimizer
Google has entered an arena which comes as no surprise but still a slight shock. The company has made billions of dollars off click based advertising, literally billions. In fact, they make more than a billion dollars... More...

B2B Search Marketers’ Budgets Unaffected by Competition
B2B search marketers keep close watch of their competition’s activities. That, of course, is obvious. But a new study released by Business.com takes a closer look into the details and finds that though these search marketers... More...

Google Tops Search Engines in July
Recent figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings shows that Google is, once again, the top search provider in the U.S. The numbers collected for the month of July 2007 show that Google handled 4.1 billion queries during the month, or... More...

Moms Rely on Search Engines
According to DoubleClick Performics’ recent "Searcher Moms - A Search Behavior and Usage Study" (which was conducted with help from Microsoft and ROI Research) moms are heavily dependent on search engines as a... More...

ComScore Unveils qSearch 2.0, Google is Happy
A few weeks ago, Nielsen//NetRatings decided to shift its focus from page views to the length of visits on Web sites. On Monday, comScore followed up with a change of its own by introducing qSearch 2.0. Google in particular will... More...

Popular “How To” Queries in the U.S. and U.K.
Search engines have essentially become guides for living life for many people all over the world. They might help find a Web site, or an image, or shed some light on "how to" do just about anything imaginable. Two people at Hitwise... More...

Guilty By Association
As a fan of the Simpsons, if I were to head to the movies right now, I would see that, or perhaps Transformers, except that it might no longer play in one of the nicer cineplex theaters. Perhaps, I'd start with the... More...

Wikia Search Engine Picking Up Steam With Grub
Last Friday, Wikipedia founder and Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced that Wikia had acquired Grub, a Web crawler that utilizes unused computer processing time on users’ computers to crawl the Internet’s pages. Users can... More...

Privacy Becoming the New Battleground for Search Engines
Last week, Microsoft added Ask Sponsored Listings to its adManager Beta search advertising service, which is part of its Microsoft Office Live platform. This week the two companies linked arms again, but this time concerning... More...

PPC vs. Affiliate Arbitrage - Part 2
Perhaps not quite a soft spot, but we have long followed and had a strange affinity for various forms of arbitrage. It is, in many ways, a representation of life at large - the pursuit of easy money, the ultimate cat and mouse... More...

Only Microsoft Gains in June
According to the most recent numbers released by comScore, Microsoft was the only one of the five major search engines to actually gain ground in June 2007. Even the almighty Google lost a few points during the summer month. More...

Google Testing Mobile AdSense
Google has its enormous eye on just about every arena of life out there, and the mobile arena is definitely no exception. With about 3 billion mobile handsets in the world, according to Dilip Venkatachari, director of product... More...

Checking in on Yahoo
The stock market doesn't ever tell the full story, but it often can tell a great story. Such seems the case for Yahoo. Jerry Yang succeeded Terry Semel on June 18th, and investors rewarded the stock with a modest 3%... More...

Google Gains, Yahoo, Ask and AOL Lose in May
May was another good month for Google in terms of its share of the search market. According to the latest figures released by comScore’s monthly qSearch analysis, Google owned 50.7% of the total search market in May... More...

Breaking Down Paid Search, Part 1
Google has long seemed to have a love/hate relationship with the affiliate marketing company. That is to say, they seem to hate affiliates and love to make their lives difficult. Two weeks ago we... More...

Google Says “No” To Essay Writing Services
In a controversial move, Google recently made it known that it would no longer run advertisements for essay writing services on its AdWords platform. Universities and those employed in academic fields applauded the move... More...

Google Hoping For Stronger Presence in South Korea
While it’s no secret that Google absolutely dominates U.S. search, it’s also no surprise that Google lags behind domestic competitors in various overseas markets. South Korea, where about 70% of homes have high-speed Internet... More...

Affiliate Arbitrage
Generally, when Google makes a change to its quality score algorithm, we find out the same way Apple Store employees learn of their new products, from an announcement on the web site. At the time of... More...

Google Dominates Search in April
Figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings on Monday indicate that to no one’s surprise, Google is tops in the search market once again, and the competition is very far behind. More...

Search Arbitrage Strategies
Those not in the direct marketing space tend to have an antiquated notion of what it really means and associate search engine arbitrage only with affiliate marketers, generally in a negative light. Search engine arbitragers span the... More...

Google Adds To Its Lead
Another month, another confirmation of Google’s dominance in the search engine realm. March only revealed what we already knew about Google’s share of the search market pie: it’s big, and it’s growing. More...

A Beginners Guide To Search Advertising Part 1
We here at the Digital Moses Confidential have been covering the online advertising industry for over 3 years now. We have a combined 8 years of search engine advertising experience. Our years of search engine advertising... More...

Yahoo and Google Alter Ads
The past few days have been eventful for Yahoo! and Google ads, with the former announcing future word limits and the latter altering some colors, functionalities, and formats. More...

Google Benefiting From Advertisers’ Ignorance
Jon Morris is the founder of Internet Marketing Initiative, which is a search engine marketing firm. He claims that if advertisers using Google’s ad platform knew what they were doing, they would save themselves $2.1 billion... More...

Google Gains, Everyone Else Loses
February was a tough month for every search engine whose name did not start with “G.” The most recent figures released by comScore’s qSearch indicate that Google... More...

Google Drops the C-bomb
My heart almost stopped when I saw the subject of the Inside AdWords email sent, "[Inside AdWords] Pay-per-action beta test." That almost reaction almost doesn't make sense though. We work in the CPA space. We spend countless... More...

Microsoft and UC Davis Examine Search Engine Spam
Spam is a problem that has primarily been known for its unwelcome presence in e-mail inboxes across the world, but the average Web user also knows that spam is a large inconvenience to their online search experience. Microsoft... More...

Jury is Still Out on Panama
A couple weeks ago, comScore indicated that Yahoo!’s new search ads, delivered on the new platform called Panama, saw a jump in click-through rates. Yahoo!’s stock has reaped the benefits, growing more than... More...

One Edu Company's Big Day
Those who follow online lead generation, especially those who follow and /or operate in the online education lead generation space quickly circulated the news surrounding Vantage Media. Had you not known of Vantage Media, you... More...

Yahoo Ads Seeing More Clicks
By now, many people know the power of online advertising. Google derives virtually all of its financial strength from it, site owners across the globe are making good money from it, and online tricksters everywhere are doing their... More...

Quality Score Released and Publisher Quality Thoughts
For the first time since the introduction of the Quality Score in August of 2005, advertisers now have a glimpse into their Ad Group’s score. Advertisers learned last week that they could enable a Quality Score column as part of a... More...

Here We Go Again - Quality Score Update
Oy. The body of the email that I received yesterday had written in it just that one word, a sign of exasperation, almost frustration, if not resignation. What could have caused such a response? A quick look at the forwarded message... More...

Top Search Terms for January 2007
Earlier this week, Hitwise released their listing of the top 10 search terms for 10 categories for the month of January 2007. More...

Google Presently on the Attack While Mobile Foes Loom
In the midst of all its other morsels of juicy happenings, Google has inadvertently (or cunningly) reminded the Web of its seemingly inevitable dive into the office productivity suite realm. This time it’s a presentation product... More...

MySpace Top Term in 2006
Hitwise recently released their "Top US Search Lists of 2006." This list gives us a different perspective compared to other lists concerning what Web users were interested about last year. More...

My Favorite Session at Affiliate Summit West: The Confluence of Search and Affiliate Marketing by Kris from Pepperjam
I apologize for not posting frequent, live Affiliate Summit West event coverage as I meant to. After a late, exhausted arrival I was playing catch up the whole time and didn’t get to blog as much as I’d hoped-I’ll try my best to do a better job of this at future events. More...

Site Age in Rankings - The New Toolbar PageRank (in a bad way)
No, I don’t mean it’s the new “most important” component of the Google algorithm. I mean it’s the one that probably isn’t that important but causes people to OBSESS. Just like toolbar PageRank has done for years. More...

Google, Yahoo Gain Ground in December
According to the most recent numbers released on Monday by comScore Networks, Google and Yahoo were the only two of the five top search engines to gain ground in December 2006. Microsoft, Ask, and Time Warner all fell a... More...

Wazap Headed Stateside
Don’t look now, but another search engine with a specific target audience is looking to make its way into the U.S. market. More...

ChaCha Receives Funding, Hints at New Stage of Search
Google may be the undisputed king of search, but for some reason new search engines keep popping up. And probably for good reason. There are niches and methods of delivering information that just can’t be bottled up in a... More...

Matt Cutts - The Voice of TrustRank
The man, the myth, the legend. To black hat SEOs he embodies the dreaded arch enemy. To white hats, he is the source for authoritative, accurate advice you can trust. More...

Evil Google in 2007?
“Don’t be evil.” This has been Google’s long-standing motto, and is supposed to embody what the search giant is, but with a recent blog post by Firefox co-founder Blake Ross, there is more than a subtle indication that Google... More...

Search Marketing Gets More Expensive
According to the DoubleClick Performics 50 Search Unit Trends Report, search marketers saw their costs rise during the third quarter of 2006. The average cost to a search marketer who purchased a keyword for the quarter... More...

Top Search Terms of 2006: Four Different Takes
The line “Top Search Terms of 2006” has a certain ring to it. It’s always interesting to get a glimpse into what searchers were most eager to see or read about online, and top search terms are a nice way of summarizing that... More...

Google Not Embraced in Booming Russia
Though Google is a search and advertising behemoth stateside, it has had its share of problems mimicking this dominance overseas, and Sergey Brin’s own motherland, Russia, is no exception. More...

Beauty of Arbitrage
Those in the direct response space see the world differently. They get paid when something happens and only when something happens. Those in the direct response space come in many shapes and sizes. They include... More...

Baidu Plans on Entering Japan Search Market
So, what do you do after you’ve experienced the number one spot in China’s search market? According to the country’s leading search engine, Baidu, the answer is to head over to Japan. More...

One Goal, Two Approaches
An interesting bit of news made the rounds the past two days, that of the four-year old Google Answers shutting down. In theory, it made for a nice compliment to the company’s core product - a purely technology based... More...

Google Still Hogs Search Share
Google is still the king of search, no matter who you listen to. According to figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 3 billion searches were conducted on Google in October, which was about 49.6% of the total search... More...

Evolution of the Quality Score - Part 2
With the Quality Score, Google has found a masterful way to make more money from its advertisers in the name of more relevant ads. As an advertiser, it comes down to one thing, the higher the Quality Score, the lower the actual... More...

Evolution of the Quality Score - Part 1
A little more than a week ago, beginning November 6, 2006, Google unveiled its fourth Quality Score announcement. If you don’t advertise on Google, this might not mean to much to you, but if you do advertise on Google, especially if... More...

Calling Dr. Google
Reports surfaced a few weeks ago indicating that Web users were relying on the Internet for answers to their medical queries and concerns. A report titled “Online Health Search 2006” was released by the Pew Internet & American Life... More...

AOL Unveils FullView
AOL has been quite active in recent times. They announced a big business model shift, enhanced its e-mail product, and notched deals with big media companies to offer various movie, music, and television videos for download... More...

Google Continues Dominance, Yahoo! Falters
September was a good month for Google’s search share. It increased its share by 1% from August, hitting the 45.1% mark, according to comScore qSearch. Nielsen//NetRatings was even more optimistic, indicating that... More...

Testing for the Masses
Yesterday, Google quietly unveiled its newest product. It doesn’t have the glamour of last week’s billion dollar purchase of YouTube. In fact it has nothing do with video, recent acquisitions, or Web 2.0. Google’s new product, dubbed... More...

Keyword Advertising - to police or not?
On September 28th a judicial decision was handed down in Google’s favor, a decision impacting the multitudes of businesses that engage in paid search advertising. This decision, believed to be the first United States court ruling of... More...

Local Search’s Growth Bolstered by Google, Yahoo
According to recent figures released by comScore Networks, local search is continuing its ascent. The study for the month of July found that about 109 million people in the U.S., or about 63% of the American online population, performed local... More...

Search Engine Marketers to See Big Holiday Season
According to DoubleClick’s affiliate network arm, Performics, online marketers could be in for a huge holiday season. This is assuming that a general rule remains true to form. More...

Yahoo and the Internet, Part 2
As we saw in Part 1, Yahoo’s stock price has seen better days. In the beginning of this year, the company announced guidance that met expectations only to be treated with a double-digit percentage decline in their... More...

Yahoo and the Internet, Part 1
If this were baseball, Yahoo would not be going to the playoffs. And, if the adage, “three strikes and your out” applied, then the current number two in search would have even bigger worries. At the beginning of last week, Yahoo... More...

Google’s Search Share Jumps Again
According to Hitwise, Google attracted 60.29% of the total U.S. search volume for the four weeks ending September 9th, 2006. This sets a new high for the year, jumping slightly above the previous high of 60.23% reached for the four... More...

Google Tinkering with Sponsored Results
Would someone who never clicks on sponsored results when searching on Google be better served if those blue ads on top of the search results were moved to the right side of the page? More...

Google More Popular in Europe than in U.S.
The latest report from comScore indicates that Google was visited by 75% of the European online population in July. Interestingly enough, this exceeds the 60% of the American online population that visited Google’s properties in the... More...

Google Loses Search Share
According to comScore Networks’ monthly qSearch analysis of search engine activity released on Sunday, Google actually saw its share of online searches decrease in the month of July 2006, while Yahoo!, Time Warner, and Ask each... More...

Consumers Unsatisfied with Portals
According to the most recent study conducted by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, customers in the U.S. are becoming less satisfied with major portals and search engines, Google included. More...

Lycos and the Importance of Linguistics in Search
Remember Lycos, the search offspring dot-com bubble poster child CMG Information Services, Inc? Well, Lycos is still around, quiet, but still around after changing hands a few times. Now Christopher Mohn, heir to the... More...

To BMT or Not To BMT?
When mentioned among SEMs (Search Engine Marketers) in a casual setting, Bid Management Tools, which will be referred to as BMTs in this article, often dampen conversations, like talking property tax law at a cocktail party. This is... More...

Health Search Engines Wanted
According to JupiterResearch, 71% of online consumers run queries through search engines in order to find answers to health-related questions, but only 16% of them find the information they want. This seems to indicate that there... More...

Quality Score Update - CPC to PPC Arbitrage Parade
In April, I wrote about a site that had jumped from zero traffic to an Alexa reported almost 15 million page views per day. The site peaked towards the end of June at more than 20 million page views and achieved a rank that More...

Twisting Your Keywords in the Wind
While studying the creatives of competitors throughout my years in the paid search industry, as any self-respecting SEM should, too often have I witnessed the same thing: It seems as though countless search engine advertisers use the same... More...

Leaders in Alternative Search
There is a search engine based in Pasadena, California called Snap.com with a stated desire to become “The other way to Search”. All it takes is a click and a search or two to see how Snap.com is a true alternative to the norms of... More...

Search Marketers Are Getting Smarter
New findings released by DoubleClick’s Performics indicate that search marketers are becoming more adept at handling fluctuating marketing conditions and are running more effective campaigns... More...

Google goes CPA
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present, as part of a panel at DM Days, my thoughts on the changing search landscape. My piece focused on CPA search, a topic that fascinates me in no small part due to the arbitrage activity taking More...

Google’s Voice Recognition Possibilities
Using hands and fingers to carry out various tasks is becoming more and more tiresome for many consumers around the world. As technology has advanced, so have expectations and desires for further levels of convenience... More...

Ad Scheduling Introduced to AdWords Users
Late Thursday night Google unveiled ad scheduling (or dayparting, as many people call it) to its AdWords users around the world at no charge. This new feature will allow a campaign manager to optimize their return on investment... More...

Google Users in China Must Choose Between .Com or .Cn
Google has fallen in with the ranks of other Western companies that have bent their knee to China’s censorship requirements. Google’s main site, Google.com, is still accessible in China, but at a much slower speed than the... More...

Google Captures 50% of April Searches
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Google garnered 50% of all searches conducted in April, once again proving their dominion over the search realm. Yahoo! was second with 22%, while MSN was third with 11%... More...

Google Making Headway into Video Ads
Last week Google announced that they would begin selling click-to-play advertisements to advertisers in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. It will be a computerized auction service that will allow marketers to place these video... More...

Microsoft’s Entrance to AdCenter: Google and Yahoo, Be Prepared!
Let’s welcome Microsoft’s AdCenter to the PPC advertising field. A quick question, though, why is AdCenter here? Microsoft, the juggernaut, sat on the sidelines for quite awhile and watched as first Overture (later bought by Yahoo... More...

Google Sandbox Plays the SEO
A few weeks ago, I presented myself with a challenge - to do some Internet sleuthing and get to the bottom of this perplexing condition that newly search engine optimized websites (that’s SEO) face known as the Google... More...

Delving into CPA Search
There are few online businesses that I would want to create less than a new search engine. Unless it involves China, user generated content, and/or video, chances are the media and others will treat the launch about as serious as... More...

8.5 Percent of Sponsored Links “Risky”
According to a recently published study conducted by McAfee SiteAdvisor, 8.5% of sponsored links on major search engines led users to “risky” sites, as opposed to 3.1% of natural results. The study tested results of popular... More...

U.S. Department of Justice: IE7 Not a Problem
Despite Google’s cries of foul play, the Department of Justice has found nothing wrong with the default search box settings in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7, which is still in beta. Back in early May, Google filed a complaint... More...

Image Search
The use of search engines in locating information has become so central to our daily lives that it is hard to imagine a world where one cannot simply “google” driving directions just before heading out to the car. This availability of... More...

24/7 Real Media Sees Rising Revenues
24/7 Real Media, Inc., surprised analysts by beating their estimates with $41.7 million in revenues for the first quarter of 2006. The company did have a GAAP net loss of $0.16 per share, compared to a GAAP net loss of $0.01 per share in... More...

AdWords to Use Local Times
For those not living on the west coast and who have been using Google AdWords accounts, it has become a subtle but annoying task to continually remind yourself of how far your local time zone is to the Google’s Mountain... More...

Yahoo Plans Changes to Ad System
On Monday Yahoo! revealed long-awaited changes to its online advertising platform, which will be implemented in three phases. This comes in the face of waning hope that Yahoo! can keep up with Google’s online advertising... More...

Google Fears IE7
A story in the New York Times on Monday indicated that Google was talking to the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission about Microsoft’s beta version of Internet Explorer 7. According to Google representatives, the... More...

Search in the Far East
To stay relevant or even solvent, a company must keep itself informed. That’s why research, of both the in-house and outsourced varieties, is essential. At ConductSearch.com keeping tabs on who’s doing what in the marketplace is... More...

Google Keeps on Growing
According to a report issued late on Monday by ComScore Networks, Google enlarged its share of the U.S. search market for the eighth consecutive month in March. Of the top five search engines, Google and Ask (formerly AskJeeves)... More...

Users Only Willing to Give Three Pages of Their Time
Jupiter Research and iProspect conducted a survey involving 2,369 participants from an online consumer panel in the U.S. to study search-related behavior. To no one’s surprise, the study concluded that most search engine... More...

Is Click-to-Call what Local Search Has Been Waiting For?
Click-to-call is an emerging contextual advertising format that will help spark the growth of localized search. It links online users to offline advertisers by combining Internet telephone capabilities. Although it has yet to hit its stride... More...

Some Adwords Basics for Beginners
Google’s Adwords is still the yardstick by which other search advertising platforms measure themselves. This isn’t merely an industry observation, but a respectful sentiment that I share... More...

Almost Half of February Searches Were Googled
February was just another month in search that was dominated by Google. According to individual reports issued by Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix, Google held on to its top spot in the share of the overall U.S... More...

Yahoo Involved in Click Fraud?
Ben Edelman, a PhD candidate at Harvard and a spyware researcher, has recently come out with some new follow-up information about his research in August of 2005 concerning spyware vendors receiving payments from... More...

Yahoo! Updates Toolbar
Yahoo!’s updated Yahoo! Toolbar includes improvements for both IE and Firefox users. For users of IE 5 or 6, tabbed browsing capability has been added to appease users until IE 7 is released. The Toolbar for Firefox users... More...

Google versus Yahoo by the numbers - Part 2
Last week we featured a column titled “Marketer’s Unite - Open Up the Kimono.” The better title and the one used on my blog, is “Google versus Yahoo by the numbers.” This week, we continue the fascinating look at... More...

AdCenter : What Would Jack Bauer Say?
Listen to me, okay? What I’m going to tell you is very, very important: being top banana in search doesn’t mean anything. Don’t click away, I’m serious, you’ve got to believe me. Quick, run a check on Excite.com - you must, no one else... More...

Refining Your Keywords For Better Results
Mom never taught us this and our teachers certainly didn’t, but sometimes it’s good to have a negative attitude, at least in paid search. With apologies to the memory of the great singer Bing Crosby I’ll try to explain a little something... More...

Yahoo! Publisher Network Updates Terms and Conditions
On Monday, the Yahoo! Publisher Network sent an e-mail to its publishers about updates to its terms and conditions. Compared to the prior version of the terms and conditions to the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, there... More...

Marketers Unite - Open up the Kimono
The same day that Apollo Group announced its partnership with Advertising.com was the same day that an article in AdAge told of “a war of words” as “as search-marketing vendors went toe-to-toe with Google and... More...

Local Search to Approach $1 Billion in 2006
In a new Borrell Associates report entitled “2006 Local Search Advertising,” Borrell projects that the local paid-search market will reach $987 million this year, which is more than double the $418 million it earned in 2005. This figure... More...

As Search Engines Grow Smarter, Will You?
As search gets smarter, tricks get cheaper and we get nearer to coming full circle to an original goal of Internet search: that content is, indeed, king. It cuts across the grain of some notions we’ve held in the industry for some time, that... More...

Google-Gov’t Impasse Resolved: Well, For Now
The issue of Internet privacy rights in America has been a hot topic of late. The latest flashpoint was a showdown in San Jose, CA pitting the Department of Justice against the giant search engine Google. Essentially, the Department of... More...

Campaign Optimization
So your pay per click campaign is up and running, now what? After your campaign has been running for a while and the data has begun to flow in, the next step in effective pay per click management is... More...

Nielsen//NetRatings: Search is Fine
Contrary to earlier reports by comScore Media Matrix, Nielsen//NetRatings indicated that search volume actually increased 39% in January compared to the prior year. ComScore’s findings indicated that search grew at just 11%... More...

Privacy for Personalization?
At the relatively small Search and Privacy track at last week’s SES conference in New York, the Fourth Amendment was a source of major discussion. In light of the recent subpoenas being sent to the four major U.S. search... More...

SES NYC(Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo): A Bustling Conglomeration
Coursing through the carpeted hallways of the Hilton NYC convention center, thousands of people from every demographic were either entering or exiting the various lecture halls. This was not to say that the traffic at the booths was... More...

Search is Losing Steam
As users become more familiar with their favorite sites, it logically follows that they will have less and less use for a search engine. In fact, comScore’s 4th quarter 2005 survey found that it was the first quarter since this data has been... More...

Beyond Keyword Development
Get organized. Whether it be in categories (Yahoo!) or AdGroups (Google), it is important to have all of your keywords placed in logically themed groups. There are endless ways to group keywords, but usually, I see keywords... More...

Is PageRank Still Significant?
PageRank has garnered a lot of attention, and the continuous updates to PageRank seem to indicate that things are going through a slight change. Sites that were once ranked lower have risen, while sites that used to be More...

Keywords are KEY (Part 2)
So you’ve developed a core list of keywords to bid on, now what? Filter what you currently have. After I develop my core list of keywords, I like to go through my list to double check that I do not have any keywords that... More...

Demand Service With Your On-Demand Software
On Demand! We want it here, we want it now. Hell, we want it yesterday. Considering the instantaneous nature of the Information Age, these requests are reasonable to make of any technical solutions provider. More...

Google Under Fire, But Search Is Strong
Could the Sports Illustrated Jinx, where teams and athletes featured on the cover famously floundered soon after publication; have spread to their fellow Time, Inc. More...

Search Engine Revolution on the Horizon?
The words “search engine” have become virtually synonymous with Google and maybe even Yahoo! and Microsoft. These Web leviathans have dominated the search engine scene and it is difficult to imagine it any other way. But is there a revolution that will usurp these three kings of their thrones? More...

The Super Bowl of Earnings
For analytical types, the last two weeks in January are like this Sunday for football fans. It’s during these times that the public companies, including those in our space, announce their fourth quarter earnings. All the guessing ends More...

Google.cn: The Internet As Beijing Sees It
In November I wrote an article and referenced a trip that ICMediaDirect.com’s VP of Business Development, Diana Lee, took to China. She participated in Shanghai’s inaugural ad:tech conference. It was a great trip and our More...

Google News No Longer Beta
In September 2002 Google News was launched in beta mode with the hope of giving readers the ability to read not only one perspective, but many, on whatever topic of news was out there. Over three years later Google News has More...

Yahoo! Leads By Conceding
Last week, Yahoo! admitted that Google has a stranglehold on the search engine market and that they can not do anything to change that. Essentially, they announced that they were content with being #2 in the search engine More...

Google Owned 46% of Searches in November
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Google captured 46.3% of search queries in November 2005, while Yahoo! trailed behind with 23.4%. Approximately 2.4 billion searches were done through Google’s search engine, while about... More...

Chasing the Search Tail
Although popular search words garner all the attention and adoration in the news, they only make up about 50% of all searches, according to Google estimates. The other 50% is made up of unique searches using specific... More...

Google Surprising #1 in China
Baidu, not Google, is China’s leading search engine in terms of market share. Baidu holds 51.5% of the market, while Google trails behind with 32.9% of the market. So it was a surprise when a recent study done by Keynote Systems... More...

What Do I Do For A Living?
Reunions of any sort follow the same template. People who have lost touch ask the same questions. Of the top three asked, the one that I have recently had to answer the most was “what do you do?” And with that, I confidently reply “I work for... More...

Welcome to “The Long Tail”~the Search Marketing
If we took all the movie buffs of the world, grouped them according to favorite movies, and made a graph of the head-count starting from largest to smallest numbers, we would end up with a line gently sloping down from the box-office smashes to contemporary... More...

Yahoo! Publisher Network Gains Momentum
“Based on demand from online publishers, we are opening our Publisher Network to the broader publisher community. Through the expanded platform, we plan to offer unique products and services to publishers of all sizes... More...

All That’s Fit to Google
In what feels like ages ago, yet in actuality occurred only two months ago, NASA and Google publicly announced their intent to work together. Having already conquered cyberspace, a milestone seemingly capped by Google’s successful hiring of the “father... More...

Google’s Jagger Update and Analytics Change Search
Google’s newest update, Jagger, has webmasters, online businesses, and SEO companies shaking in their boots. Put Jagger together with Google’s recent Google Analytics, and it seems that search will soon see some sweeping changes that are here to stay.... More...

Sealed Vs. Open Keyword Auction
If you have ever seen a mortgage lead form, you will know that one of the drop downs deals with the potential borrower’s credit. Not being a mortgage banker or broker, it would seem reasonable to believe that those on the lending side would only want to... More...

The Blurring of Search and Media
That Ad:Tech might have felt crowded, overlapping, and utterly confusing - reflects not on the show but the industry. Our industry used to have easily defined boundaries and companies that could fit into independent silos. Like the continents, the... More...

Google Unveils Free Analytics Service
On Monday, November 14, Google announced that it would make its Web analytics service available to Google account holders for free. Google acquired the San Diego based Urchin Web Analytics in March and has up until recently continued to use the Urchin... More...

Firefox Gets Good News and Google's Help
Despite three months of sluggish growth, Firefox is back on its merry way to closing in on the Goliath that is Microsoft's Internet Explorer. More...

Trends Report: The Future of Direct Navigation
If you read this week’s Digital Thoughts, which of course you did, you would have read about a small conference that very few in our industry attended. For those of us that did attend, such exclusivity won’t last long as this space should soon become a significant player in the world of online advertising. More...

Google: All Your ‘Base’ Are Belong To Us
The Mountain View based company earlier this week unintentionally provided a sneak peek at what appears to be an impending expansion into classified advertising — a move that would have the search engine giant going toe-to-toe with online marketplace eBay More...

Who Owns the Gmail Mark ?
Google Inc., the world's most widely used online search engine with a market cap hovering $90 billion, yesterday bowed to the demands of a British company just a fraction of its size More...

Trends Report - Affiliates and Search
In only a few years, search has gone from the new kid on the block to the de facto method for driving traffic. While most likely not intentional, the increased popularity of search has been accompanied by an ever increasing learning curve to use... More...

The Latest Digital Media Craze - Podcasts!
Hoping to cash in on the latest digital media craze and to stay ahead of the podcast curve, Yahoo Inc. is introducing tools for searching, organizing, and rating podcasts. Just this past Monday, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which... More...

Trends Report - Yahoo! Search Marketing Listing Guidelines Policy Change
The message might have come out a little late yesterday for those covering the industry to pick it up, but almost assuredly, this topic will dominate the industry today. Then again, maybe not. Postings about the topic are scarce, and usually such postings... More...

Digital Thoughts - AOL-MSN or is it MSN-AOL?
AOL earned more than a billion dollars last year on advertising revenues and will earn even more this year. A healthy chunk of those ad revenues come from search, and no surprise to those in our industry, AOL’s search revenues come from Google... More...

Google, Lost in Space?
Google and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have joined forces, an unlikely alliance you would think, unless of course Google has already begun preparations for dominating other planets. While one rules the search space... More...

King Google
Google Talk, Gmail, Desktop Search, Toolbar, Orkut, Froogle, the list of free Google services that actually add value to our everyday Internet experience goes on and on. Last week I discussed Google’s maturation from simply a search engine... More...

Six Steps to Ensuring Site Visitor Returns
A captivating and successful Pay Per Click affiliate implementation encourages Internet visitors to leave a site through a profitable exit route, while still ensuring they will come back for return visits. Accomplishing this goal means integrating... More...

Is Google ripping us off?
Back in July, I wrote an article about Google's new changes to its AdWords program. The changes were intended to both simplify keyword management as well as give advertisers more control. The AdWords keyword status system was simplified to either... More...

Search Engine Tips & Tricks - How to Improve Your Link Popularity
One excellent way to begin building quality links is to list your site in Yahoo and in the Dmoz Open Directory. DMOZ and Yahoo are Very Important Listings! These human based directories have a lot of influence over ranking and are crucial... More...

I thought Spam was for Email?
We’ve all felt the ill effects of spam. Whether it be that feeling in the pit of your stomach after munching down some of that pseudo-meat popular with Hawaiians, or all those emails promising a bigger penis bombarding your inbox, it sucks for the consumer. More...

Digital Thoughts - The Many Faces Of Google
If I were the number one search engine in the world, I’m not sure that I would allow many queries to show my number one competitor’s web site as the first listing, all while not showing any paid listings. MSN doesn’t do this. Yahoo doesn’t do this. So why... More...

Blogging and Your SEO Strategy
If you still think blogs are just online diaries, simply another new communications fad, only used by teenagers with too much time on their hands… think again. Blogs can be a powerful component of your SEO strategy. In case you’ve been in a black... More...

Buy your way to the Top?
If you’re an SEO, you already know the importance of building relevant backlinks. For the layman who may have heard terms like backlink and pagerank being thrown around, but wasn’t quite sure what they meant: More...

MSN Paid Search
MSN recently introduced MSN adCenter, what they call “the next generation online advertising platform from Microsoft…” The first product offering from adCenter is the MSN Paid Search solution, encroaching further on Yahoo! and Google’s PPC cash cow. More...

Trends Report - Anatomy of a Lead Gen Industry
This week’s Digital Thoughts uses a wide brush to cover the evolution and segmentation of arbitrage activity online. In it we touch upon one of the major arbitrage activities, lead generation. It’s an industry that, regardless of how they buy... More...

Can't We All Just Get Along?
Internal search engine marketing teams and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Firms using PPC (Pay per click marketing) may be adversely hurting affiliating marketing. The uphill battle for affiliates and their managers is consistently growing as search... More...

Search Users Overlap, Results Do Not
Dogpile.com recently collaborated with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University to measure how much overlap and differences in ranking there are between search companies MSN, Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves. More...

AdWords Simplifies
Google recently announced changes to its AdWords program intended to both simplify keyword management as well as give advertisers more control. Their AdWords keyword status system will be simplified to either active or inactive from its current... More...

New Overture Guideline Affects Affiliate Marketers
Any good affiliate marketer’s (or business person's) main objective is to make the most money as efficiently as possible. Search arbitrage on a pay-per-click basis always carries the tradeoff between high volume general keywords and lower volume... More...

Digital Thoughts - Google Casts A Semantic Web
Many of have wondered what the future has in store for Google. Will they become the next Microsoft - an enormous profit machine embedded into our lives and directly controlling how many of us compute? Might Google, today’s high flier.... More...

Efficiently Managing A Pay Per Click Campaign
Search terms and listings are the building blocks of a pay per click campaign. When performing a search, they are the words, terms or phrases that an Internet user types in to find a specific product or service. More...

Creating Powerful Listings
A commonly overlooked component, the listing, aids in the creation of a powerful Pay Per Click advertising campaign. The listing is what a visitor sees after typing in a search term. It consists of an accurate title, relevant description and working URL. More...

Digital Thoughts - Clash of the Titans
There is something fun about watching two titans clash. Think of Godzilla battling King Kong. It’s fun especially, and probably only, assuming the battle doesn’t lead to one’s own demise. Instead of Godzilla and King Kong, the two titans More...

Trends
A little more than one week ago a press release went out that seemed as though it should have generated more interest than it did. The company behind the release, Snap.com, offers a product unlike any other on the market. More...

Trends
This week marks the two month anniversary of Google AdWords Affiliate Policy Change. It focused on and impacted a very specific type of activity - that of search engine arbitrage. More...

Trends Report - Search Engine Activity and Tools
Search as an industry is always in the news. And these past few week's have been no exception. Rather than earnings or user base statistics, the most recent news has focused on feature developments and operational strategy More...

Trends Report
As companies announced their prior quarter and year end figures, much of the recent industry news focused on 2004 being a record year for online advertising with hopes that the momentum would continue into 2005. More...

Digital Thoughts - Search Engine Market
This week’s Trends Report examines the search engine market through the weaving together of search related topics in the news. Here, we look at search and its similarities, differences, and impacts on the affiliate and ad network space. More...

Effectively Selecting Search Terms for Pay Per Click Campaigns
Choosing search terms is one of the most important aspects of a pay per click campaign. The right keywords can make or break any online advertiser’s campaign. Irrelevant keywords can result in low conversions and little exposure to the proper online audience. Therefore advertisers should consider relevancy, spelling, and length when choosing search terms to assure target traffic is directed to their site, increasing the chance of higher sales conversions from their PPC campaign. More...

Search Engine Tips from a Search Engine Tracking Company
We chat with a lot of folks at KeywordMax. Some pretty interesting tips from smart search marketers have been revealed to us. We decided to share some of this wisdom. More...

Is Text and Context Ruling the Roost?
The hottest space in online advertising is search engine marketing. Google is about to go public and have a market capitalization that will be the envy of just about all online media companies this side of Pluto. More...