According to WebVisible, the current break down of search share is:

Google: 60.4 %

Yahoo 26.2%

Bing 10.5%

Ask 2.4%

Continuing from the WebVisible report:

“Small Businesses Increase Spend by 91 Percent Generally, small businesses are buying more keywords and dramatically increasing their paid search budgets when compared to last year, according to WebVisible. First off, the average small business purchased 55 keyword phrases in Q3, which is up 30 percent from Q3 2008’s median number of 43. That statistic represents the high-water mark for the four quarters that WebVisible has been tracking small businesses keyword buys. Meanwhile, businesses dedicated an average of $1,658 to search ads, 91 percent more than Q3 2008. And business-to-consumer professional services appear to be the busiest in terms of collecting local sales leads via SEM. Attorneys and dentists made up the top two advertiser categories, with 7.7 percent and 5 percent of total small advertisers, respectively. Each of the two categories invested far more than average, spending $2,560 and $2,005 respectively in Q3. Air conditioning services and physicians/surgeons were the only other categories that accounted for more than 2 percent of search advertisers. Overall, the research suggests that the small business search advertisers are a varied bunch. The top 20 categories accounted for only 36 percent of total dollars spent. Thirty-two percent of search clicks resulted in a “lead conversion,” meaning the viewer either clicked through to a landing page on the advertiser’s Web site, printed a landing page, watched a video, printed out directions, entered an e-mail address, inquired via e-mail, or completed an online form. Clicks to the Web site were far and away the biggest lead conversion type, coming in almost twice as high as the next three categories: printed landing pages, submitted e-mail inquiries, and printed driving directions. For small businesses utilizing a call tracking number, 4.5 percent of the clicks resulted in a call, a 3.6 percent lift from 2008. No material differences occurred among advertisers in terms of CTR or proportion of lead conversions. However, WebVisible said that cost-per-clicks and keyword counts tended to increase with rising spend levels.”

Quite a shift!  From a merchant’s perpsective this is a double edged sword. When Google had 75-80% of the marketshare, an arguement could be made to neglect MSN and Yahoo and focus on having the best possible Google ppc campaign. Now that is no longer true. That may put a lot of strain on merchant’s paid search team to manage additional campaigns.

But, with the growing market share of Bing and to a lesser extent Yahoo, merchants who can act quickly and more nimbly then larger orginizations may be able to take advantage and grab a disproportionate share of these other engines at reduced costs.

From CNN via WIRED:

Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process. Seriously. Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype  but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company. Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice. It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop. ÿþ Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone. Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the Internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies. That’s not just pie in-the-sky dreaming. Ask longtime VOIP watcher and consultant Andy Abramson, who introduced the idea of integrating Gizmo5 and Grand Central (now Google Voice), long before Google bought either. “If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP.” –Andy Abramson “Google is now the the uncommon carrier,” Abramson said, punning on the iconic 7-UP commercials and the phrase “common carrier.” That refers to phone companies that operate on the traditional publicly switched network — a status that gives them benefits and obligations. “If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP,” Abramson added. “All of a sudden you have something that offers more than Skype,” Abramson said, saying the combo could now put Google in competition with phone and cable companies, IP “telephony” (VOIP) companies and Vonage. “But now you can do everything with Google and pay nothing and have a platform where engineers can build new things.” In fact, Gizmo5 offered a rogue version of that service for $6 a month until last week. On November 2, Gizmo5 abruptly canceled the two-month old “residential service,” which paired the free phone number available through Google Voice with Gizmo’s Internet calling service to provide the equivalent of a home-phone replacement like Vonage. Now, that service has been wiped off the Internet and, more intriguingly, Google’s cache of the page disappeared the day after the acquisition was reported. For $6 a month, Gizmo5 residential users got 300 minutes a month of outbound calling anywhere in the United States, unlimited incoming calls on their home computers or even home phones (using a broadband-to-phone network conversion box) and E911 service (which means 911 calls work like landlines calls do, once you register your home address). It’s not too surprising that offer got taken down. For one Google is already trying to steer clear of U.S. regulators by making it clear that Google Voice isn’t a replacement for a home phone since you have to have phone service from some other company to use it. You can forward calls from a Google Voice number to your Gizmo5 number, but you must have a mobile or landline number as well. Google doesn’t say it, but clearly it hopes that restriction will keep the service from incurring the common carrier obligations attached to the regular phone system (PSTN), and the 911 and wiretapping requirements that apply to Internet telephony and to traditional copper wire phones. AT&T has already tried to sic federal regulators on Google Voice because Google is blocking outgoing calls to a handful of shady calling services  mostly free conference-calling services that exploit federal rules that let rural phone companies charge high fees to connect calls to rural areas. AT&T itself has sued similar services that play this arbitrage game, and complaining to the feds may have only brought more attention to an issue the FCC has procrastinating fixing for too long. Gizmo5 will also help save Google money on phone-call termination fees as users start to use computer-based clients to connect to Google Voice. That would allow Google to recoup the purchase price of $30 million in little time, if only it saves even a few dollars per user per year. Google also gets Michael Robertson, a troublemaker with technical chops. Robertson made millions from MP3.com in the dot-com boom, despite drawing lawsuits from major record labels for creating innovative services. He was later sued by Microsoft for his startup Lindows, which made Linux installations for cheap PCs. And his current music venture, MP3tunes.com, is being sued by EMI. Though still in invite-only mode, Google Voice has about 580,000 active users and nearly 1.5 million registered users, according to a Google filing with the FCC. If you are interested in the combination, you might want to sign up for Gizmo5 before the acquisition is formally announced, since Google often freezes new registrations at companies it acquires until it figures out how to integrate the technology.

Google > You

Since I scrupulously only buy music from places the labels have approved and never use any p2p this isn’t huge news for me. but according to Google:

“…we’re rolling out a search feature that does just that by enabling you to search and more easily discover millions of songs, all via a simple Google web search. If you’re searching for music, “time to result” is really “time to music.” Now, when you enter a music-related query — like the name of a song, artist or album — your search results will include links to an audio preview of those songs provided by our music search partners MySpace (which just acquired iLike) or Lala. When you click the result you’ll be able to listen to an audio preview of the song directly from one of those partners. For example, if I search for [21st century breakdown], the first results provide links to songs from Green Day’s new album. MySpace and Lala also provide links to purchase the full song.”

Big news for you? Or was regular search working  just fine for you?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-search-more-musical.html

Advertiser number  for three major search engines lower in Q2, with MSN’s  down nearly 20 percent. Google was down6.4 percent while Yahoo’s increased slightly  .o3% . 12 month advertiser growth for Google, Yahoo, and MSN were -8.5 percent, +9.8 percent, and -6.7 percent, respectively.

Recently Congress has been investigating the user’s privacy with the growingly pervasive ‘opt-out’ advertising programs such as those run by NebuAd. The Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter on August 1 to Microsoft, Google, AOL  and a number of other companies, asking for information on whether or not personal data had been collected, what restrictions were placed on the collection and how the information was used. The companies were given until August 8 to respond.

NebuAd’s deep packet inspection was the lightning rod that drew increased congressional scrutiny and Google recognized this and promised to place its answer online for open inspection.

Google has since posted its reply. Google  by categorically stating that it does not engage in deep packet inspection while serving advertising and posits that most other advertisers do not as well.  According to the company, Google’s privacy policy is founded on three principles: providing transparency, choice, and security.

Google goes on  to say that it has been an active participant in the FTC  initiative to develop privacy principles and hopes that these principles “will be adopted widely by the online advertising industry and will serve as a model for industry self-regulation in jurisdictions beyond the United States.” The letter concludes with a  pledge to work with to create a uniform federal privacy law.

Other Google points:

• Google’s online search advertising serving while contextual, do not make use of web browser history, and that it maintains no such database. 

• The  DoubleClick merger Google intends to integrate some of that company’s technology into its own products to tailor ads more effectively. Users can opt out of this via a single option which will control a person’s opt-out status for all of the websites within Google’s network. 

• Data retention: Google does not require any personally identifiable information (PII) to be provided and retains only standard server log information and/or cookie ID. Google anonymizes all search log data after 18 months.

Do no evil? You decide.

 Orion Bancorp of Florida recently won a  court case  in which it received a competitor’s domain (not new) but also that if its competitor, Orion Residential Finance, ever engages in paid search advertising, it must include  negative keyword-Orion in all campaigns (very new).

This might be the first court case that mandated negative keyword parameters in a ruling. It looks like deep pocket, litigious companies now have an additional weapon with which to bludgeon its competition.

From Ars technica:

” Orion Bancorp took its rival to court, arguing that the name was confusingly similar to its own. Orion Residential Finance apparently sent a lawyer to court but never filed a response of its own, and the judge eventually issued a default judgment against it. The judgment contained the usual prohibitions on using the name “Orion” in signs, promotional materials, and slogans, but it also included domain names and online advertising.

The judge prevented Orion Residential from “purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or ‘adwords’ in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff’s Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term ‘ORION’ as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.”

The “negative keyword” ruling means that Orion Residential advertising would be explicitly prevented from showing up after searches for the term “Orion,” but could appear for any other keyword searches.

 The decision was handed down at the end of last month but recently noted by technology lawyer Thomas O’Toole. O’Toole points out that the judge’s decision goes far beyond what a company would be able to get simply by pursuing a domain name dispute and sees it as a “good example of the sweeping relief possible when the defendant defaults in an online trademark infringement case.”

Law professor Eric Goldman expects to see more such requests in these kinds of cases, saying, “I think it’s a logical addition to any injunctive relief request in a trademark infringement case.”

Companies, judges, and regulators alike have grown increasingly aware of the power of online advertising and the ways that it works, and in large portions of the world, this means that people have become increasingly aware of Google. (In this case, the judge repeatedly refers to “adwords,” for instance.) But as online advertising increases in importance, Google’s ad practices—such as allowing companies to take out keyword ads on competitors’ names—have come under scrutiny.

Australian regulators expressed discomfort with the practice last year and accused Google of “misleading and deceptive conduct” in the way it sold and displayed its ads. Just this month, a US appeals court considered the case of Rescuecom, a company that also sued Google over its keyword searches. And last year, the Utah legislature passed legislation prohibiting search engines from serving ads linked to trademarked search terms to Utah residents. The legislation provoked so much controversy that last month the Utah legislature reversed course and repealed the most controversial portions of the law.

If judges show a willingness to shut down this sort of keyword advertising in particular situations, we might see legal action in this area shift towards cases between the parties involved in disputes, rather than attempts to force change upon Google. Search Engine Watch calls the judge’s decision in the Orion case a “dangerous precedent,” but it could prove a popular one for companies that want to play hardball with rivals. “

From Reuters:The U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible antitrust implications of Google’s two-week test with Yahoo to combine some of their Web search and advertising business, a source informed about the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Google and Yahoo separately told Reuters they had informed the Justice Department about their test before it was launched.

In the test, which ends this week, Yahoo uses Google’s advertising system to show ads to Yahoo users based on their searches.

The Justice Department is concerned the test may violate antitrust law, the source said, adding that authorities “have initiated an investigation” of it.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some of the government’s concern focused on a telephone call from Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang to offer help in thwarting Microsoft’s bid worth around $44 billion.

The test was one of a series of efforts by Yahoo to fend off Microsoft’s unwelcome bid.

A second source said the Justice Department was concerned about a longer-term deal between Google and Yahoo, and had an initial inquiry underway into the matter.

Yahoo released a pres release with details regarding their new (old) relationship with Google.”it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.’s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!’s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

As previously announced, Yahoo!’s board of directors is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The Company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo! will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result. The Company further stated that it would not comment on the nature or timing of any potential relationship.”

Google accounted for 67.25% of all US searches in the four weeks ended March 29, 2008 – the highest proportion of searches it has ever achieved, and up some 5% from a year earlier, when it accounted for 64.13% of searches, according to Hitwise.

Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received, respectively, 20.29%, 5.25% and 4.09% of US searches in March. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool together accounted for 1.72% of US searches.

Google has lost another court battle in Germany to trademark the term Gmail.  The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) has just published a ruling made last month, dismissing Google’s appeal of the original decision against the company. The trademark will remain with an email service founded in 2000 by Daniel Giersch.  

Plus, German courts are growing weary of Google’s repeated legal attempts to co-opt the brand and have banned the company from taking up the Gmail/G-mail issue outside of OHIM or an official settlement (which Giersch is not interested in).

Google will be forced to use Google Mail nomenclature in Germany, although email addresses will still use @gmail.com.