Web Marketing Strategy Update

Google makes money by selling targeted advertising space. That’s its core business. Providing search results is simply the vehicle for doing so. Search doesn’t generate revenue in itself.

Has it ever occurred to you how contradictory the goals of these two activities are?

One being to provide perfectly targeted search results, the other to sell as much advertising as possible?

What would happen if every time someone performed a search, they found EXACTLY what they were looking for in the first few results?

This is what would happen: people would hardly ever click on the Adsense ads displayed on the results pages.

Why do people click on ANY link?

Because they think that it will take them to a page about whatever it is they are looking for.

Why do people click on the Adsense ads around the search results?

Because they think the ad is more likely to take them to a page about whatever it is they are looking for than the other links they see on the page.

Key Point:

Danny over at SearchEngineWatch claims Google’s purchase of Writely.com (a browser-based word processor) drove him over the edge last week. The growing number of things Google “haven’t finished, gotten right or need to fix” led him to compose a list of 25 Things I Hate About Google.

“Honestly, if Google wants to be as “ubiquitous as brushing your teeth,” then they need to make sure the Google toothpaste tastes good or that you can squeeze it out of the Google toothpaste tube (beta) without it getting all clogged up.”

Good reading to quickly catch up on where Google is at, as much as anything else.

Also see this related post about Google’s accidentally released Analyst Day notes left in PowerPoint slides released to the public earlier this month, and this post showing the notes themselves, which make interesting reading, or you can download the original slides here.

Was it really an accident? …