|
Big changes in Google PPC arena
Google has started showing 3 paid search listings across the top of SERP;s. This means a position 3 bid can have added significance, and create more clicks as you would have all seen the 'hotspots' in search engine user research. i.e. top left is where the action is ...
The other changes that have gone live are the new keyword states. Locally this has not affected many of our campaigns, but in the global and US campaigns where we are running many thousands of keys the effect has been significant. Gone are "on hold," "in trial," and "disabled" keyword states with "active" and "inactive" replacing them. Make sure you review your campaigns to check how this has affected you. I have seen it hit low relevance keywords hard taking a .50c bid to a $5.00 minimum. As always you need to be all over your stats, conversions, sales, CPA and other metrics to really understand what your budget is returning. It is all good and well to bid on the generic phrases, but certainly good ROI is to be found in more specific exact matches. If you must bid on big phrases, then qualify your traffic as much as possible by using descriptive ad text. More info from Google on new ad states here.
Yahoo now indexes 20 Billion Items
A post in Yahoo's search blog touted the size of the company's index of items. Some 19.2 billion web pages and documents fill the index, along with 1.6 billion images. It is estimated that Google indexes around 11 billion items.
Size does not equal relevancy and that is what counts, being returned a result which gives you what you are looking for. Yahoo's search blog states that they measure quality with four factors: relevance, comprehensiveness, freshness, and presentation.
Yahoo buys into 40 percent of Alibaba
Yahoo! agreed on Aug. 11 to swap $1 billion in cash and its local unit for 40 percent of Hangzhou-based Alibaba, China's biggest electronic-commerce company and No. 2 online auctioneer.Alibaba runs a Web site that matches foreign buyers with Chinese wholesale suppliers, plus the popular consumer auction site Taobao.com, which competes with the Chinese subsidiary run by eBay Inc., the world's top online auction company.
|
