Yahoo! Now Includes Search Results From Microsoft

Yahoo is on it's way to full integration of Microsoft's organic and paid search results. Starting July 20th, up to 25% of the Yahoo search listings for the U.S. are from Microsoft. While Yahoo maintains the same look and feel, the results appear exactly the same as found on Bing for many keyword searches.

By August or September Yahoo! anticipates that 100% of the organic search results will be provided by Microsoft. Paid search should be fully integrated by October.

According to ComScore,  Americans conducted 16.4 billion searches in June with Google sites having a 62.6% share and Yahoo and Microsoft sites combining for 31.6%.

It is even more important to take Bing into consideration for SEO and if you aren't using Microsoft adCenter for paid search you will now that Yahoo! is being added to the mix of Bing and MSN sites.

JPG Still Leads as Top Display Ad Format

comScore has introduced the Ad Metrix Creative Summary report. The report shows that JPG display ads led the market with more than 42 percent of impressions in the U.S., while “leaderboard” banner ads (728 x 90 pixels) were the most commonly viewed display ad.

“We’ve witnessed a strong resurgence in the display ad market over the past several months, with the number of impressions up 15 percent vs. year ago and average CPMs also continuing to rise,” said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president.

 

Display Ad Creative by Format
In April, nearly 60 percent of U.S. display ad impressions were of the standard GIF/JPG variety.  JPGs accounted for 42.4 percent of ad impressions, while GIFs accounted for 14.1 percent. Flash and rich media ads combined to represent 40.3 percent of all display ads viewed.

Flash Ads can include animation, click-through functionality, and various levels of interactivity. Rich Media Ads offer high interactivity and in-page video units, expandable/retractable units, floating units or between-the-page units.

Google Testing Pay-Per-Purchase Ads

Google is testing a new type of advertising format within its sponsored links on Google. Product ads, unlike text ads will “feature product specific information directly in the ad such as price and product image,” according to the email Google sent some advertisers inviting them to try out the ads. The new format is intend to “complement standard text ads on Google.com.”

A Google spokeswoman said in a statement that the “test will only be visible to a small number of U.S. users” and emphasized that the company was “constantly experimenting with new features.”Sponsored Links on Google when users search for products that match the items in your feed. Beta testing is for US / English

Google will charge advertisers only when a user makes a purchase. Advertisers set the commission rate and Google decides which products to display and when. Like their pay-per-click text ads, Google will optimize the rotation of product ads to maximise their return on ad space.

To participate in the service, retailers must submit a feed of their products through the GoogleBase service, which is Google’s version of a classified listings service.

Google "Retires" AdWords Business Pages for Mobile

Mobile ads are a format of AdWords ads that appear on mobile Web sites, and are available as either text or image ads. Mobile text ads can also appear when users search Google from a mobile device. With either type of ad, users who click on an ad will be sent to a mobile Web page or to a business phone.

AdWords Business Pages for Mobile was a service that allowed businesses to create a simple mobile compatible Web page where people could learn more about their products and services. Users of this service have received notices that the page building service will be shut down on March 23. Google terminated this after just 14 months citing "low usage".

Does this mean that the mobile search ad industry is dieing? No, just a bump in the road.

This service was targeted to small businesses who manage AdWords on their own and don't have a mobile Web page. Many of these businesses prefer the option to connect users to directly to their business phone, which is still available. Larger businesses create their own mobile compatible Web pages.

Microsoft to Launch GazeInLink™

Microsoft has been testing a new Web gadget called Gaze which offers structured and contextual information in a manner similar to Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT and Kontera's in-text ad technology. Like those existing products, Gaze underlines keywords on the page and lets visitors hover or click for related advertising and information in a small popup box.

According to Microsoft, "A GazeInLink™ is generated through a technology owned and operated by Microsoft AdCenter. The link is placed within the content of a web page; upon click the GazeLink™ will link the user to relevant information and offers (ads). ... A GazeInLink™ is clearly distinguished by a unique underline or other decoration that a publisher chooses. A mouse-over, click or by a small icon that sits next to the entity/keyword. When the user places the mouse over a GazeLink™, the gadget layer opens with information about the linked entity/keyword. Ads are blended in to the content in a non intrusive way. They’re meaningful to user and related to what the user is reading."

The Gaze home page offers a teaser suggesting that this won't be formally introduced until April 15th.

Botnets, Industry Click Fraud Rate Climbs to Highest Level Reaching 17.1% in Q4 2008

Click Forensics, Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the fourth quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry’s leading independent click fraud reporting service – the Click Fraud Index.

A few highlights (or lowlights)

• The overall industry average click fraud rate grew to 17.1% for Q4 2008. That’s up from 16.0% in Q3 2008 and from the 16.6% rate reported for Q4 2007.


• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2%. That’s up from the 27.1% rate reported for Q3 2008 and down slightly from the 28.3% rate reported for Q4 2007.


• Traffic from botnets was responsible for 31.4% of all click fraud traffic in Q4 2008. That’s up from the 27.6% rate reported for Q3 2008 and the 22.0% rate reported for Q4 2007.


• In Q4 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside the U.S. came from Canada (7.4 percent), Germany (3.0 percent) and China (2.3 percent)

The research also found a resurgence of “click farms,” (groups of people are hired to click on ads to help others make money), which had, reportely, all but disappeared.

Read more...

Industry Click Fraud Rate Hovers at 16 Percent for Third Quarter 2008

Click Fraud Traffic from Botnets Rises 10 Percent; Botnets Grow to Make Up More than 27 Percent of All Click Fraud

Click Forensics, Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the third quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry’s leading independent click fraud reporting service – the Click Fraud Index.

Key findings from data reported for Q3 2008 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.0 percent for Q3 2008. That’s down slightly from the 16.2 percent rate reported for both Q2 2008 and Q3 2007.
  
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.1 percent. That’s down from the 27.6 percent rate reported for Q2 2008 and the 28.1 percent average click fraud rate reported for Q3 2007.
  
• Traffic from botnets was responsible for 27.6 percent of all click fraud traffic in Q3 2008. That’s up from 25.2 percent for Q2 2008.
  
• In Q3 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from Russia (4.9 percent), France (4.8 percent) and the U.K. (3.5 percent).

Industry Click Fraud Rate Holds at 16.2 Percent in Second Quarter 2008

Click Forensics, Inc., . today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the second quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry's leading independent click fraud reporting service - the Click Fraud Index.

Key findings from data reported for Q2 2008 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.2 percent for Q2 2008. That's down slightly from the 16.3 percent rate reported for Q1 2008 and up from the 15.8 percent click fraud rate reported for Q2 2007.
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.6 percent. That's down from the 27.8 percent rate reported for Q1 2008 and up from the 25.6 percent average click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
  
• For the first time, traffic from botnets was responsible for more than 25 percent of all click fraud traffic in Q2 2008.
  
• In Q2 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from China (4.3 percent), Russia (3.5 percent), and France (3.2 percent).

Industry Click Fraud Rate Down Slightly for First Quarter 2008

Click Forensics, Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the first quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry’s leading independent click fraud reporting service – the Click Fraud Index.

Key findings from data reported for Q1 2008 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.3 percent for Q1 2008. That’s down slightly from the 16.6 percent rate reported for Q4 2007 and up from the 14.8 percent click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.8 percent. That’s down from the 28.3 percent rate reported for Q4 2007 and up from the 21.9 percent average click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
• Q1 2008 click fraud traffic from botnets was 8 percent higher than click fraud traffic from botnets in Q4 2007.
• In Q1 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from Monaco (3.1 percent), Ghana (3.1 percent), and New Caledonia (2.4 percent).

Industry Click Fraud Rate Climbs to 16.6 Percent for Fourth Quarter 2007

Click Forensics, Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the fourth quarter 2007 from the search advertising industry's leading independent click fraud reporting service at the Click Fraud Index.

Key findings from data reported for Q4 2007 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6 percent for Q4 2007. That's up from the 14.2 percent click fraud rate for the same quarter in 2006 and 16.2 percent for Q3 2007.
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.3 percent in Q4 2007. That's up from the 19.2 percent average click fraud rate for the same quarter in 2006 and 28.1 percent for Q3 2007.
• The 2007 industry average click fraud rate grew by 15 percent over the industry average click fraud rate for 2006.
• Q4 2007 click fraud traffic from botnets was 15 percent higher than click fraud traffic from botnets in Q3 2007.
• In Q4 2007, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from India (4.3 percent) Germany (3.9 percent) and South Korea (3.7 percent).

P&G Uses Search to Find the Right Customers

This 28-Jan-2008 article in 1 to 1 describes how the consumer company, with more than 600 U.S. Web sites devoted to its various products, looked at what they were doing with paid search and tried to apply that approach to a tool for organic search. They developed software that would track how successfully the content of its brands' Web pages were driving the right traffic to their sites. Read more...