comScore Releases August U.S. Search Engine Rankings

comScore Releases August U.S. Search Engine Rankings
Sep 21 08:19 AM US/Eastern

RESTON, Va., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the search marketplace. Among core search engines in August 2007, Google Sites remained the top search property with more than 5.5 billion core searches conducted, representing a 56.5 percent share of the search market. Time Warner Network was the only other core search engine property to increase share, up 0.1 share point to 4.5 percent, with 441 million searches.

In comScore's recently introduced expanded search report, the largest gains were recorded by YouTube and Craigslist, with 9.0-percent and 7.6-percent increases in their number of search queries.

August U.S. Core Search Rankings

In August, Google Sites maintained its position atop the core search rankings with 56.5 percent of U.S. searches, gaining 1.3 share points versus the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 23.3 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (11.3 percent), Time Warner Networks (4.5 percent) and Ask Network (4.5 percent). comScore Core Search Report* August 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0 Core Search Entity Share of Searches (%) Jul - 07 Aug -07 Point Change Aug-07 vs. Jul-07 Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A Google Sites 55.2% 56.5% 1.3 Yahoo! Sites 23.5% 23.3% -0.2 Microsoft Sites 12.3% 11.3% -1.0 Time Warner Network 4.4% 4.5% 0.1 Ask Network 4.7% 4.5% -0.2

*Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Nearly 5.5 billion core searches were conducted at Google Sites during the month, marking a 1.6 percent increase in volume versus July. Time Warner Network, assisted by gains at AOL, gained in query volume, with a 1.2-percent increase to 441 million searches. comScore Core Search Report* August 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0 Core Search Entity Search Queries (MM) Jul - 07 Aug -07 Percent Change Aug-07 vs. Jul-07 Total Core Search 9,896 9,820 -0.8% Google Sites 5,459 5,545 1.6% Yahoo! Sites 2,325 2,290 -1.5% Microsoft Sites 1,214 1,106 -8.9% Time Warner Network 436 441 1.2% Ask Network 462 438 -5.1%

*Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

August U.S. Expanded Search Rankings

In the August 2007 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the pack with 6.8 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with nearly 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), Time Warner Network (937 million) and Fox Interactive Media (571 million). comScore Expanded Search Query Report August 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0 Search Queries (MM) Jul-07 Aug-07 Percent Change vs. Prior Month Total Expanded Search 13,692 13,703 0.1% Google Sites 6,614 6,809 2.9% Google 5,507 5,602 1.7% YouTube/All Other 1,107 1,207 9.0% Yahoo! Sites 2,524 2,473 -2.0% Yahoo! 2,493 2,438 -2.2% All Other 31 35 12.9% Microsoft Sites 1,251 1,144 -8.6% MSN-Windows Live 1,223 1,111 -9.2% Microsoft/All Other 28 33 17.9% Time Warner Network 959 937 -2.3% AOL 436 438 0.5% Mapquest/All Other 523 499 -4.6% Fox Interactive Media 587 571 -2.7% MySpace 575 560 -2.6% All Other 12 11 -8.3% eBay 472 457 -3.2% Ask Network 462 439 -5.0% Ask.com 214 205 -4.2% MyWebSearch.com/ All Other 248 234 -5.6% CRAIGSLIST.ORG 185 199 7.6% Amazon Sites 151 154 2.0% Comcast Corporation 71 73 2.8%

For more information on comScore qSearch 2.0, please visit http://www.comscore.com/contact

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore analysts apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 700 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, BBC, Carat, Cyworld, Deutsche Bank, France Telecom, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Financial Times, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestle, Starcom, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Verizon, ViaMichelin, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com

Britney Spears is Still Popular Among PPC Marketers

Another helpful post from payperclickhelpers.com

Who knows how long this post will last as my adsense will most likely infiltrate my blog with ads about "OOps I Did it Again", so Buy a CD if you will.

As I write this post my co-worker is going on telling a client about the "Britney Spears" example. This is where someone says, I just need some volume and the paid search marketer says: I can get you traffic, I will put you on broad match on the keyword Britney Spears. My Cowo goes on to speak about impressions, CTR, quality score and all that jazz. the client learns about targeted traffic, not just traffic.

This is a critical moment in the relationship between the client and the PPC search marketer, as from this Britney Spears example the client begins to understand so much more, sometimes too much, and that is why only 23% of customers stay with Search Marketing agencies. People learn this stuff quick; click by click. (it rhymed)

if you are looking into SEO then someone will probably share with you the "miserable failure" Google bomb trick; although Google has killed it. Anyway, thanks Britney. I think you are swell, I still find you attractive, and am hoping that you learn to play acoustic guitar and have a singer songwriter comeback.

Cap'N Click

Yahoo Ad Generator: Not Quite There & Not Realy Useful

Some of you may have noticed that on your YSM PPC account you will see a feature when on the adgroup level called the ad generator. I attempted to use this tool today for one of my groups; I was unable to get it to work successfully. There were some general bugs including the inability for lines to save properly when using "&" Ampersands as well as the inability for me to push the ads I successfully created to use within my account. I will include some screenshots when i am not on the company clock. Over & Out.

Cap N' Click

More on PPC Keyword Generation by Cap'N Click

Another helpful ppc blog posting from Payperclickhelpers.com

More on Keyword Creation:
Keyword creation is an ongoing task. This blog post will review some techniques available for keyword creation and might provide you with some new ideas about where to get a new set of keywords:
There are two schools of thought I use when it comes to keyword creation:
1. Mass creation without organization – this is for the impulsive search marketer like myself who really does not want to put a lot of thought into structure and tying adtext back to terms – (this is not recommended for the meek) but, the approach is throw in all the terms you generate into a bank and look at volume on the words, you begin to get an idea of how to segment based on volume and performance, impression data etc… You then structure the ppc account as you go.
2. Structured Approach: This is where you structure the layout of the account first: you know the campaign names and adgroups within before creating keywords. This is a much better approach.
a. Segmentation of a campaign should be a logical parent child structure. For instance if your are selling Ford Cars, your campaign should be named Ford Cars and the adgroups within the campaign should be each model of car you are selling. This of course could be broken down even further if you so desire by creating adgroups for model colors, styles, features, etc.
Sources & Techniques
First thing: You will need some tools open:
1. Open an excel work book and name it some variation of Keyword Generation File.
2. Open This Page: http://www.sitemapbuilder.net/Default.aspx
3. Open this page Google URL Builder: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Competitors Sites
Go to the sites of your competitors: List each URL of competitors in a cell in excel: Name the tab competitor sites or something to that effect. The top 3 or four competitors will do. In the Google keyword tool tab over to the find keywords by URL. Enter each of the URLs into that field to and hit the Get Keywords button. You will retrieve a list of fairly targeted terms that pertain to your industry. Select which terms you like and hit the ADD button. When finished enter the next URL in the search box and repeat process.

Product feed or inventory list
Using an existing product feed or inventory list is a quick way to get lots of data into your search account. Usually the structure of your product feed will compliment that of a publisher and you will have things like Campaign, Category, already established. Using Excel you can remove the odd characters from a product feed and segment things following the original structure. For instance products might be listed with a “_” , instead of spaces, i.e. “Red_Stereo_Sony”; a simple find and replace could solve issues. Be resourceful is the bottom line. You have a huge ppc keyword list in front of you; figure out how to use it.
Sitemap builders:
Often the architecture of your own site can serve a good blue print for account structure and provide you with a keyword universe. By running a site map builder, an easy one that just shoot back links, like the one I recommended above (http://www.sitemapbuilder.net/Default.aspx) you will find a logical hierarchy and structure to your campaigns. Run the site map builder on a product category page and then figure out how to parse the term, category, and destination URL out of the link. One handy tool I have used is called Text pad, http://www.textpad.com/ it allows you take a text file and paste it into row format, it is a great method to take the data from the sitemap builder before putting it into formats in excel.
Source Code:
Using the Text pad tool mentioned above you can use it to extract useful data from source code. Often all the information you need for structuring a campaign and making keywords will be right on the page. It is just a matter of you figuring out how to get it from the web page onto and excel sheet.





If you have more questions oo want someone to build some keywords for you email us @ Info@payperclickhelpers.com

Search Marketing's Long Tail to Get Longer, Says Study

Taken from mediapost.com

Another helpful ppc blog posting from Payperclickhelpers.com

Search Marketing's Long Tail to Get Longer, Says Study
by Tameka Kee, Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007 6:00 AM ET
CHICAGO-BASED INVESTMENT FIRM WILLIAM BLAIR & Company partnered with AdGooroo for a keyword-based advertiser-side analysis of the global search industry, authoring a report that pegs the number of advertisers at more than 500,000 and growing--with 90% of them currently running search campaigns with Google.

The search giant didn't snag all available advertisers, however, as the report found that the 10% of marketers not using Google remained exclusive to either Yahoo or MSN. Analysts attributed this slice of market share to affiliate marketers and other companies whose business policies run afoul of Google's standards. According to the research, 30% of all search marketers run campaigns on Yahoo, while only 10% use MSN--with about half of each of their advertisers using Google as well.

The study was conducted between February and July of this year--and the number of search advertisers grew by 15-20% just in those five months, with Blair analysts noting that this points to a competitive, healthy search market overall with a long tail that continues to lengthen.

The success of Yahoo and MSN's paid search offerings hinges on both companies' abilities to snag these new advertisers with better algorithms, more streamlined interfaces and a more solid ROI--as illustrated by Microsoft's recent adCenter revamp and Yahoo's major Panama upgrade.

In March, Yahoo did see an increase in advertisers from the Panama rollout, but the numbers have since slipped steadily. The report notes that the decline had been expected, since Panama's algorithmic upgrades focused on increasing relevancy and improving the quality of the Yahoo search marketplace--which likely eliminated a number of low-quality ads and advertisers.

Yahoo's paid search improvements are promising, but the report still pegs Google as a better stock option than Yahoo: "While Yahoo is showing progress, this research is somewhat discouraging, as it illustrates the amount of work still required for Yahoo to close the gap with Google."

All three of the analyzed search engines were affected by seasonality, with 3-9% spikes in the number of advertisers during March and July, and a 1-7% dip in June. According to the report, these expected trends marked increased advertiser spending for spring and summer apparel, travel, Mother's Day (with the lone rogue factor being an uptick in real estate advertisers) and a decrease in advertisers during the industry-wide summer slowdown. "The return to growth in July was likely just a reflection of ongoing industry strength and a lengthening of the long tail," Blair analysts added.

Tameka Kee can be reached at tameka@mediapost.com