In search of an edge

Spend on internet marketing is growing like never before. The sector is propping up the UK advertising economy with an extra £1.3bn in the first half of this year alone, according to the IAB. Search engine marketing continues to be the online medium that is attracting marketing spend. Nearly 60 per cent of all online budgets are being committed to those most innocuous yet powerful little text ads, proving that media doesn’t have to be rich to produce the great returns marketers are looking for. Search plays a crucial role in almost half of all ecommerce transactions. In July alone, internet users conducted 1.4 billion searches, with over 80 per cent of them clicking through to a website. This puts search in a league of its own, in terms of marketing effectiveness. It is the only medium able to reach researching, active and purchase motivated customers. With 80 per cent... Read full article

Top Search Stories - October 2007

Google’s battle with Microsoft has dominated the search news headlines this month as the two tech giants vied to secure a stake in social networking site, Facebook. The tussle was won by Microsoft who parted with a cool (and somewhat over inflated) $240m for a 1.6% stake in the company. The deal will see Microsoft become the exclusive third-party ad platform partner for Facebook allowing them to sell ads internationally. Meanwhile the search blogosphere has been gripped by the backlash of Google’s PageRank amendments, as what appeared to be a crackdown on paid links was rolled out. The changes saw many news sites, blogs and other sites heavy with interlinking, experiencing significant PageRank drops of 2 to 3 points virtually overnight. Google’s #1 search guru, Matt Cutts, confirmed on 30th Oct that this was in fact the case, reiterating Google’s firm plans to clamp down on paid linking activity. News... Read full article