This week Google was sued by Lending Tree, a company whose website enables consumers looking for mortgages and other loans to connect with lenders. LendingTree alleges that Google is planning to launch an online loan exchange of its own and that it will use technology provided by one of LendingTree's vendor. The problem: LendingTree alleges the vendor is contractually forbidden from working with LendingTree competitors, which LendingTree clearly believes Google is.
For its part, Google says that it's simply "working on a small ad unit test that will run against a limited number of mortgage-related search queries in the U.S." So while we don't yet have enough in the way of hard facts to evaluate the merits of LendingTree's claims, the lawsuit raises an interesting question: what if Google gets into the lead gen business?
You may have noticed it: those trusty AdWords ads that appear to the right of your search results seem a little bit closer to them than they did before.
It's not an optical illusion. Others are seeing it too. I first saw myself the other day when I did a search and had to do a double-take.
You may have noticed it: those trusty AdWords ads that appear to the right of your search results seem a little bit closer to them than they did before.
It's not an optical illusion. Others are seeing it too. I first saw myself the other day when I did a search and had to do a double-take.
“’Catchy’ is one word for it,” wrote MG. “Another is awful.” I’m afraid I agree with Siegler here, apart from the catchy bit, but make of it what you will:
It turns out that the winning songwriter - one Jonathan Mann, who writes one song a day and uploads them to YouTube – isn’t one to take this kind of criticism lying down. He has replied to Siegler via the power of song!
Microsoft is hard at work trying to compete with Google on search. The company has invested billions in research and advertising for its new search engine Bing. Not to mention the year long effort to get access to Yahoo's search business, which resulted in a deal penned last week.
But will Bing make progress in its fight against Google? Much of its search growth has been made at the expense of Yahoo to date. Now that the two are working together, will it continue to grow its search influence?
It looks like the key to Bing's success is also a major weakness: incremental advances on existing search technology.
Not everyone is sure that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft will work out the way Yahoo and Microsoft hope but by in large, advertisers and search marketers are excited about the deal.
While Google will still hold a dominant lead in the search market, Microhoo becomes a strong number two, something that should create more competition. As David Kenny of Publicis' VivaKi told AdAge, "Anything that creates a credible platform and more innovation in search is going
to be good for consumers and, therefore, good for advertisers".
So after one of the worst wrong turns in corporate history, Yahoo has finally acceded to Microsoft by crawling into bed with the Bingmaker. In a nut, Microsoft will power Yahoo’s search engine and Yahoo will sell the ads globally.
Microsoft’s search market share will rise to around 21.5%, according to figures released by Hitwise last month, or roughly one quarter of Google’s share.
The deal lasts for 10 years, proving a little about my previous assertion that Microsoft is only five or so years into a 25-year search strategy. It is playing the long game, and this deal has solidified its position.
From where I’m sitting this signals three things:
Yahoo has totally given up on proprietary search. It might become a media company after all.
Microsoft has strengthened its hand and the deal should help prise further market share from Google.
Advertisers may benefit in the long run.
But what do the search marketing professionals make of the deal? I’ve been asking a few questions, so let’s hear what they have to say…
Are web surfers that use Bing more susceptible to advertising? If they are — and continue using the search engine — that could be very good news for Microsoft.
A new study by search-advertising network Chitika found that Bing users clicked on an ad 1.5% of the time on average, versus a 0.97% clickthrough rate for Google visitors and a 1.24%
clickthrough rate for Yahoo.
If that means Microsoft and Yahoo users pay more attention to advertising, it could be very good news for the smaller search engines. But it could also spell trouble for both if users are simply switching between the two services depending on which has the best advertising at any given moment.
When Google reported its Q2 earnings yesterday, it beat analyst expectations. But all the news wasn't good news, at least for Google.
In the area of paid clicks, Google experienced an unhealthy downward trend: total paid clicks declined 2% from Q1 and more importantly, the average cost-per-click (CPC) in the second quarter fell 13% year-over-year.
This week Google 
Microsoft is hard at work trying to compete with Google on search. The company has invested billions in research and advertising for its new search engine Bing. Not to mention the year long effort to get access to Yahoo's search business, which resulted in a deal penned last week. 
Not everyone is sure that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft will work out the way Yahoo and Microsoft hope but by in large, advertisers and search marketers 
So after one of the worst wrong turns in corporate history, Yahoo has finally acceded to Microsoft by crawling into bed with the Bingmaker. In a nut, Microsoft will power Yahoo’s search engine and Yahoo will sell the ads globally. 
When 
