Contextual advertising within the PPC mix

By Stuart Johnstone Senior PPC Analyst Pay per click (PPC) advertising has become a central part of the digital marketing mix and has enjoyed massive year on year growth since its inception. However, despite the global adoption of this unique and lucrative form of advertising, there are still untapped territories within the paid search offering. One such area is the content match or contextual element offered by most of the major networks (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Ask). So what is it? Contextual advertising is a feature that allows adverts to appear on relevant sites, (i.e. sites containing content relevant to what is being advertised) in a form more akin to traditional banner ads than PPC links. Although contextual search has yielded low returns in some industries, it has proved very effective in others. Gambling, Recruitment, Finance and Publishing are four key sectors that thrive in the contextual arena. IDG, one of... Read full article

What do search engines like so much about Wikipedia?

By Warren Cowan CEO If you've done a search in just about any vertical and were the type to take slightly more notice of who's where on the page, you'd have been hard pressed not to have repeatedly come across Wikipedia ranking just about everywhere. Initially confined to academic searches and purely reference searches, the strength of Wikipedia has seen it popping up for increasingly Generic and more commercially oriented phrases, to the point where it seems that almost every keyword's search engine result page, (SERP) has seen some sort of wiki creep. And I know all of you have been picking up on this, because I've been to so many pitches and client meetings of late, where "what is it that Wikipedia is doing and why does Google like them so much?” is popping up as a pretty regular question. So seeing as I'd repeated myself so much, I... Read full article

Google facing law suit over sponsored links

Source: timesonline.co.uk A consumer watchdog is taking legal action against Google over the way it sells and displays its sponsored links, in a case that could "send shudders down the industry". The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that it believed its action, which named Google Inc and Google subsidiaries in Ireland and Australia as defendants, was “the first to seek legal clarification of Google’s conduct from a trade practices perspective". The case stems from 2005 when Trading Post, an Australian classified ads magazine, took out sponsored links in the name of two car dealerships from Newcastle, New South Wales. People clicking on the names of the dealerships found themselves on Trading Post’s website. The ACCC dropped a case against Trading Post when the publication said it would stop using its competitors’ names in Google sponsored links. However, the watchdog now says that Google “engaged in misleading and deceptive... Read full article

Google plans search service for mobile content

Source: wsj.com Google Inc. is developing a new search service for cellphones that will help consumers find and buy ringtones, games and other mobile content as the Internet company pushes more deeply into wireless, people familiar with the matter say. Google already offers cellphone users a version of its popular engine for searching the Web. Now the company wants to go beyond just looking up Web pages, effectively becoming a gateway for finding and paying for mobile media content. With the new system, users would search for a piece of content -- say, a U2 ringtone -- and get back a list of providers as well as links enabling them to easily purchase the material. Eventually, Google would charge companies for high placement in the search results, much the way it offers "sponsored links" on computer Web searches, the people familiar with the plans say. The company has been working... Read full article

Ask.com to offer privacy control

Source: digitaltrends.com Search engine Ask.com has announced it will be introducing a new service called AskEraser, enabling users to ensure that Ask.com does not retain their search histories. Once rolled out, the feature will make Ask.com the only search engine which gives users the option of preventing retention of their search data at the time of their search, as opposed to contacting the search engine company after the fact and attempting to have the data expunged. The company plans to roll out AskEraser in the U.S. and UK markets by the end of 2007, and have the service available globally in early 2008. At the same time Ask.com introduces AskEraser, the company plants to implement a new data retention standard which disassociates search histories from a user's IP address and cookie information after 18 months. The move comes just days after leading search engine Google announced it would be setting... Read full article

Yahoo profit rises, but revenue falls short

Source: news.com Internet bellwether Yahoo on Tuesday posted a higher second-quarter profit on continued strong advertising, but revenue fell short of analysts' expectations, sending shares lower in after-hours trading. For the period ended June 30, the company posted a net income of $754.7 million, or 51 cents a share, excluding traffic acquisition costs. Minus $563 million from the sale of an investment that Yahoo executives declined to specify, the company reported 13 cents a share, in line with analyst estimates and 5 cents above last year. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo posted revenue of $1.25 billion, a 51 percent increase over the $832.3 million it reported a year ago. Excluding fees paid to marketing partners, the company posted revenue of $875.1 million. Analysts had expected the company to post revenue of $882.7 million, according to a survey by Thomson Financial. The company forecasted second-quarter revenue of $855 million to $859 million when... Read full article

Online shoppers in no hurry to buy

Source: e-consultancy The average time between a customer first visiting an etailer and completing their purchase has risen over the past two years, according to a new study. ScanAlert's Digital Window Shopping Report found that shoppers take an average of 34 hours and 19 minutes from the first visit to purchase, according to an analysis of 2.6m online sales. The average time was 19 hours in the firm's last report, suggesting that some shoppers are more cautious than before. The study looked at users of ScanAlert, partly to test whether the presence of its Hacker Safe logo would affect customer behaviour - the firm said it increased conversions by 14%. ScanAlert said the report emphasised the importance of trust and security in the buying process, and recommended that retailers use a longer timeframe to measure ROI on PPC campaigns. It also suggests that customers frequently use the shopping cart as... Read full article

The search wars are going mobile

Source: e-marketer.com The telecom and Internet industries are colliding head-on in competition for control of the consumer mobile search business. Telecom carriers, handset manufacturers, publishers, directory and yellow pages companies, Silicon Valley giants and a gaggle of start-ups are squaring off to contend for the title of mobile search champion. Each is trying to convince marketers that it is the natural inheritor of mobile search. "Mobile search is a battle to define perhaps the most important new interface with the consumer," says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new report, Mobile Search: Clash of the Titans. "Whoever cracks the consumer and commercial code for delivering and monetizing relevant answers for people on the go will secure a license to print money, at least for a time." Depending on a researcher's particular bias toward telecom, Web or technology factors, the published forecasts for mobile search... Read full article

Personalised AdWords: Google ads you see influenced by previous searches

Source: searchengineland.com Personalized Google ads from Wiep illustrates how Google is personalizing ads for people based on their previous search query. For example, you can do a search for weather forecast, then conduct a new search on holiday in Spain, and then do another search on weather forecast and you should then see ads for weather reports in Spain. This type of personalization first started to be noticed back in April, as discussed in a WebmasterWorld. But that thread lacked actual examples, which the Wiep post provides, as does Ben Murphy in a separate post. What's Google doing to make this happen? Google sent this: What you're seeing is that we look at the user's previous query and see how well it intersects with the current query. If it's significant, we'll use it to help targeting on the current query. We simply look at what's in the referring URL (every... Read full article

Microsoft moves to protect search records

Source: timesonline.co.uk Microsoft has chipped in with its own claim to internet search privacy protection by announcing it will make all records of search queries anonymous after 18 months. The software company also called on others within the internet search industry to adopt a set of privacy principles, which would regulate the use of personal information for the purposes of search advertising. Google, the leader in internet search, said in March that it would limit the period it kept personal information relating to search queries to 18 months, and last week said its 'cookies' — the files a website stores in a user's computer so it can be identified the next time it visits — would expire after 2 years. In a separate development, Yahoo said that it would make its search data anonymous after 13 months unless a user requested otherwise. Microsoft's announcement reflects the growing concern among search... Read full article