The five biggest myths about Google
On the internet, few companies receive more attention than Google. And for good reason: Google touches so many individuals and businesses. From search to its 'side projects', just about everything Google does creates interest.
Google's prominence, not surprisingly, has led to the creation of many myths. Here are my top five.
Nielsen: Display ads send more traffic to retail sites than search
Display advertising is starting to look like the little ad format that could lately. Online advertisers are moving away from click-through rates as a metric for display success, large companies from Google to Yahoo are stepping up their display efforts and now Nielsen has come out with numbers that imply display may be more effective for retailers than search advertising.
According to Nielsen, less than 10% of online retailers' web traffic, on average, comes from search engines. That's good news for display ads. But is it true?
Google pulls the trigger, gets into lead gen
In late August, we reported on a lawsuit filed against Google by LendingTree alleging that Google was planning to offer an online lead gen service related to mortgages using technology offered by a LendingTree vendor that was contractually forbidden from working with LendingTree's competitors.
While the status of that lawsuit is unknown, it is now official: Google has entered the lead gen business.
Why SEM isn't all that
You have to love a contentious headline. In this article, I won't be declaring search engine marketing (SEM) dead. What I want to explore are the various ways you should support this kind of marketing elsewhere on your website.
Is Google really capable of detecting paid links and webspam?
Paid links are something I've written about lately as the possibility of Twitter data being incorporated into the Google and Bing search indexes has raised the spectre of a much more complicated situation vis-à-vis paid links.
In the case of Google, the rules are clear: paid links are bad. If you get caught buying or selling them, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. But just how good is Google at detecting paid links? If the example I'm about to give is any indication, it's not good at all.
Four steps to profiting from a decent domain name
If you're an entrepreneur, or budding entrepreneur, making money online can sometimes seem like a real challenge. In my opinion, that's often because entrepreneurs focus on the wrong thing. They want to create a 'startup' and become the next Facebook or Twitter.
That's a tall order and, for most of us, a recipe for disappointment. But if you're willing to start out small and work hard, profit on the internet isn't so elusive.
Yahoo delivers big profits, but does it even matter?
When earnings season comes around, everyone sort of expects Google to deliver. But Yahoo? It has been a while but Yahoo managed to follow Google and delivered investors a solid third quarter yesterday. Profits surged by 244% and the company's stock rose by 5% in after-hours trading as a result.
According to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, "we had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized". She pointed to the new Yahoo homepage, the company's big ad campaign and global expansion as signs that the company is on the right path.
Google gets deeper into display with Campaign Insights
Google's bread and butter is paid search but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have big ambitions for its display advertising business. After all, it spent $3.1bn in 2007 buying display advertising giant DoubleClick.
Google's challenge in taking display to greater heights is simple: show advertisers the money (read: ROI). The ease with which paid search ROI can be tracked is a big part of paid search's success. When it comes to display ads, however, that ROI is hard to pin down, because, well, 'nobody clicks on display ads'.
Google beats estimates in Q3
Google reported its third quarter earnings after the close of the US stock exchange today and, as it has done more than a few times in the past, the Mountain View company delivered more than analysts were expecting.
Net revenue in the quarter was $4.38bn with earnings per share of $5.89. Analysts had expected $4.24bn in net revenue and $5.42 in earnings per share. All told, total revenue was up 7% year-over-year. So the good news: Google is managing to grow even in a very tough economic environment. The bad news: growth is, by past standards, a bit modest.
Are marketers moving their Google search dollars to Facebook's display ad business?
Wired's argument this spring that Facebook is the next Google may have legs. According to Silicon Alley Insider, Facebook is skimming ad dollars from Google's search business.
SAI's Internet Analyst spoke with an ad agency that has noticed brands quietly moving ad dollars from Google search to Facebook's new self-serve display ads. If this becomes a trend, it could be huge for Facebook.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
