Searchmaven

The French Are At It Again

Check out our own article in today's iMedia Connection about how the French are throwing a monkey wrench into search marketing.  The French legal ruling against Google in the Louis Vuitton case threatens the practice of buying competitive brand keywords.

Microsoft Gets Serious

For Microsoft to be taken seriously as a player in Search they have to be able to not just serve up search results but also to put paid ads in front of the eyeballs of those searching.  They took a major step in that direction on wednesday when they announced the launch of a new online advertising platform called adCenter.  Read more about it here.

Mediaweek Article Ignites Furor in Search

An article in MediaWeek has ignited a furor in Search.  The article "Search-Specific Agencies Fight For Survival" speculates on the future of SEMs and discusses the liklihood that Search will mimic the history of Interactive as traditional media agencies "build or buy" their way into the field.  The article has spawned a thread on Search Engine Watch where there has been heated debate of the topic.  Check out the discussion here.

New Travel Keywords Study

Claria's Feedback Research announced a study conducted on search engine performance for travel-related terms and found that Yahoo! performed better than MSN and Google.

The study found that Yahoo! came in first across the top 10 travel-related search keywords such as "cheap tickets," "travel," "Las Vegas," and "Airline Tickets."

Feedback Research also found among all the keywords, "cheap tickets" generated the highest click rate of 6.55 percent with consumers viewing almost 3.5 pages views per click.  Click here for the full story.

SES Summary (Part Two) in iMedia Connection

Part Two of a summary of the recent Search Engine Summit in NYC appears in iMedia Connection.

SES Summary (Part One) in iMedia Connection

Part One of a summary of the recent Search Engine Summit in NYC appears in iMedia Connection.  It's good to see that the Force is still with Search.

Is Google A $50 Billion "One Trick Pony"?

Is Google a $50 Billion Dollar "One Trick Pony"? 

That's the question Business Week is asking in this week's issue.  Google remains almost entirely dependent for growth on search -- a business that's poised to slow.  In the maturing U.S. market, Forrester Research predicts growth will drop from 45% to 30% this year.

"Google is a one-trick pony," says Forrester analyst Charlene Li.  "It's a nice trick, but it's all they do." 

To read the article, click here.

New Survey Shows Most Use More Than One Search Engine

A new survey from Nielsen/NetRatings found that 58% of Google users also utilized MSN Search or Yahoo Search.  The use of multiple search engines is not limited to Google users.  71% of Yahoo Search users visited one of the other top engines and 70% of MSN Search users did likewise.

A total of 4,085,880,000 searches were conducted by US at-home and at-work users in January 2005, and Google accounted for 47% percent of them, maintaining its place as the top search engine. Yahoo! accounted for 21% of searches, and MSN for 13%. The remaining 19% occurred on the sixty other search sites surveyed by Nielsen.

Click here for a summary of the findings.

Overture is no more!

Overture is no more! 

It's now called Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions. 

Don't forget that exclamation point!

DoubleClick's Rick Bruner summarizes comScore study

We'd recommend DoubleClick's Smart Marketing Report about Search Marketing even if Rick Bruner,  DoubleClick's Director of Research, wasn't an old friend.  Rick summarizes the results from "Search Before The Purchase", the research study we've previously referenced from comScore Networks that was commissioned by DoubleClick.  Using its panel of 1.4 million U.S. Internet users, comScore observed e-commerce purchases at 30 sites across four product categories: travel, apparel, computer hardware and sports/fitness. It then looked at the 12 weeks of search activity among those buyers preceding their purchases and reached several findings that might surprise search marketers.