Google released a mobile feature Thursday that allows advertisers to add a clickable local phone number to mobile paid search ads. The phone number appears as an additional line of text in the mobile paid-search ad at either the bottom or top of the search query page.
The phone number in the ad enables consumers to initiate a call to the business immediately, similar to the way the person might click through to the company's Web site.
Mobile phones running Google's Android or Apple's operating system support the ad service. AdWords recently added a feature that allows advertisers to specify the type of phone to run the paid-search ad. Paul Feng, Google group product manager for Mobile Ads, says Google ran a test with a handful of advertisers for several months. Online Media Daily first heard about the tests, to insert phone numbers and coupons in mobile ads, last week. "In some cases advertisers saw the overall success of the ads increase dramatically," he says. "The click-through rates on search ads increased up to 30%."
Paid-search ads will become a more important tool as companies attempt to gain space on the mobile screen. Search traffic continues to climb, and more people have begun to adopt smartphones that allow them to browse the Web easily. In fact, mobile search traffic has already grown five times within the past few years. Feng suggests the uptick -- driven by smartphones, such as Motorola's Droid, Apple's iPhone and Google's Nexus One -- should increase.
Internal data from Google suggests that consumers with iPhones search 50 times more than those with prior-generation phones. Bloomingdale's and Vegas.com, which have been running a variety of mobile ads, have seen click-through rates rise. Vegas.com has seen mobile ad click-through rates as high as 20%, prior to today's launch of the click-to-call feature.
The two-step process to show a click-to-call business phone number in ads on mobile devices with full Internet browsers requires AdWords advertisers to set up a local extension to add a business phone number and check that you chose to show the ad. From there, customers can click to call the business from the ad. If your campaigns are already set up this way, the phone numbers will display automatically.
Google will charge the same for click-to-call ads as the cost for a click to visit the business's Web site, according to Feng. The advertisers' bid remains unchanged. Advertisers make one cost-per-click (CPC) bid for calls and clicks to the Web site.
January 29, 2010
January 13, 2010
Google Faces The Slickest Click Fraud Yet
Click fraud, that perpetual bane of online advertisers, is usually hard to detect in the moment, but easy to spot after the fact. That's because, unlike real clicks, sham clicks performed by automatic click software or human fraudsters pump up an advertiser's pay-per-click fees but never generate sales.
But on Tuesday, Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman revealed what he says is a new form of click fraud that accomplishes what online fraud watchdogs might have once thought impossible: a scam that not only simulates valid clicks on a Google ad sold to an advertiser, but seems to result in a real customer who spends money on the advertiser's site.
"This is a particularly insidious kind of click fraud," says Edelman. "It takes more effort to organize, but it gives the perpetrator the capacity to impose charges in a way that's much harder for the advertiser to notice."
In a real example dissected on his blog, Edelman described how that complex and stealthy click fraud scheme works. According to Edelman, the perpetrators of the fraud, who run a site called TrafficSolar.com, make a deal to host Google's pay-per-click ads through a long string of Google affiliate partners, each of which agree to place their ads on other sites in exchange for a share of those ads' revenue.
Then Edelman says the TrafficSolar owners infect Web surfers' machines with spyware through a common cybercriminal tactic, exploiting a security vulnerability in either Windows XP or Internet Explorer when the user visits a popular, compromised Web site. (Edelman says he isn't sure which site the fraudsters used to infect his test machine.)
When someone with an infected computer later visits any of a number e-commerce sites, including Expedia.com, Gap.com or the shoe-seller Finishline.com, the spyware on his or her machine throws up a large pop-up window that covers the entire browser with another browser window displaying the same site. Unsuspecting shoppers make purchases on that pop-up window they normally might.
But that second window "reflects the fruit of click fraud," says Edelman. To create that pop-up, TrafficSolar invisibly simulates a click on one of the ads it hosts through its deal with Google affiliates, an ad for the same site the user intended to visit.
The result is that TrafficSolar.com--along with Google and each of the affiliates it shares its revenue with--gets a share of the pay-per-click fee paid by the advertiser. Meanwhile, the e-commerce site that paid for the ad receives real traffic and real sales, with no reason to suspect wrongdoing.
TrafficSolar's sleight of hand? Those sales would have happened regardless. But its spyware hides lucrative fraud in what otherwise would have been normal transactions.
"The retailer may think it can detect click fraud by a low sales conversion rate," says Edelman. "But here, the traffic converts. Based on that high conversion rate, they might even decide to raise their bid [in Google's advertising auction system] and have no way to realize that it's all a ruse."
TrafficSolar didn't respond to an e-mail message sent to the address listed in its domain registration or to a message left at its listed Austrian telephone number, whose voicemail greeting welcomed callers to the tourism center for the Austrian city of Graz. A site advisory warning from the cybersecurity company McAfee warns users that TrafficSolar.com may be infected with malicious software, and urges visitors to use "extreme caution."
Edelman, however, isn't focused on TrafficSolar so much as the seemingly legitimate deals that allowed the site to host Google ads. For those, he blames Infospace, another search engine that dealt directly with Google to broker the ads that were in turn passed on to more than seven other affiliates in a chain of deals that eventually led to TrafficSolar's scheme.
Those tangled arrangements, according to Edelman, should lead Google to cut its ties with Infospace. "It's all well and good for Google to have partners," he says. "But for the partners to have partners who have partners ... it becomes virtually impossible to monitor.
Google owes its advertisers something better than that."
Edelman's interest in Google is less than completely objective. He's currently serving as counsel in a lawsuit by Vulcan Golf alleging misplacement of the company's ads, and he's also worked as a consultant to Microsoft. But he says neither company funded his latest research.
It isn't the first time that Infospace, which didn't respond to a request for comment, has been the target of Edelman's criticism. Since 2005, Edelman has repeatedly accused the company of brokering deals that place ads on people's computers via security exploits and spyware. Even earlier, the company faced lawsuits and ousted its chief executive in 2001 after its stock price lost most than 99% of its value in the dot-com bust.
A Google spokesperson responded in an e-mailed statement that it's the company's policy "to prohibit [advertising] partners from being associated--whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally--with parties who buy traffic in ways that cause a poor user or advertiser experience," and that it responds quickly to any violations of that policy.
As for its ability to detect the new form of click fraud, Google has long argued that it credits advertisers for as much as 10% of their ad spending based on click fraud that the company detects. While the company wouldn't comment on Edelman's TrafficShare example, a spokesperson wrote that the company uses "hundreds of data points" to detect fraud, not just clicks.
In a report last October, click fraud research firm Click Forensics measured click fraud at around 14%, significantly higher than Google's estimates. But even Click Forensics may not be counting the sort of click fraud Edelman accuses TrafficSolar of committing. Because Click Forensics' data is pulled from advertisers, the company can't necessarily detect click fraud that is disguised as real customers and real sales, according to the company's chief executive, Paul Pellman. Pellman believes, however, that the kind of click fraud Edelman discovered is likely mixed with traditional click fraud to increase the scheme's traffic volume while keeping it hidden.
Because the new form of click fraud involves installing spyware, it's likely used at a much smaller scale, Pellman says. But by mixing it with traditional fraudulent traffic, the spyware trick could cause higher-volume scams to seem to result in some sales, and thus lend them credibility.
"This is about adding a bit of what seems like quality traffic to what is otherwise a stream of junk," Pellman says. "It's just another example of how incredibly lucrative click fraud has become for its perpetrators, and the kind of sophistication that they've come up with to protect their income."
But on Tuesday, Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman revealed what he says is a new form of click fraud that accomplishes what online fraud watchdogs might have once thought impossible: a scam that not only simulates valid clicks on a Google ad sold to an advertiser, but seems to result in a real customer who spends money on the advertiser's site.
"This is a particularly insidious kind of click fraud," says Edelman. "It takes more effort to organize, but it gives the perpetrator the capacity to impose charges in a way that's much harder for the advertiser to notice."
In a real example dissected on his blog, Edelman described how that complex and stealthy click fraud scheme works. According to Edelman, the perpetrators of the fraud, who run a site called TrafficSolar.com, make a deal to host Google's pay-per-click ads through a long string of Google affiliate partners, each of which agree to place their ads on other sites in exchange for a share of those ads' revenue.
Then Edelman says the TrafficSolar owners infect Web surfers' machines with spyware through a common cybercriminal tactic, exploiting a security vulnerability in either Windows XP or Internet Explorer when the user visits a popular, compromised Web site. (Edelman says he isn't sure which site the fraudsters used to infect his test machine.)
When someone with an infected computer later visits any of a number e-commerce sites, including Expedia.com, Gap.com or the shoe-seller Finishline.com, the spyware on his or her machine throws up a large pop-up window that covers the entire browser with another browser window displaying the same site. Unsuspecting shoppers make purchases on that pop-up window they normally might.
But that second window "reflects the fruit of click fraud," says Edelman. To create that pop-up, TrafficSolar invisibly simulates a click on one of the ads it hosts through its deal with Google affiliates, an ad for the same site the user intended to visit.
The result is that TrafficSolar.com--along with Google and each of the affiliates it shares its revenue with--gets a share of the pay-per-click fee paid by the advertiser. Meanwhile, the e-commerce site that paid for the ad receives real traffic and real sales, with no reason to suspect wrongdoing.
TrafficSolar's sleight of hand? Those sales would have happened regardless. But its spyware hides lucrative fraud in what otherwise would have been normal transactions.
"The retailer may think it can detect click fraud by a low sales conversion rate," says Edelman. "But here, the traffic converts. Based on that high conversion rate, they might even decide to raise their bid [in Google's advertising auction system] and have no way to realize that it's all a ruse."
TrafficSolar didn't respond to an e-mail message sent to the address listed in its domain registration or to a message left at its listed Austrian telephone number, whose voicemail greeting welcomed callers to the tourism center for the Austrian city of Graz. A site advisory warning from the cybersecurity company McAfee warns users that TrafficSolar.com may be infected with malicious software, and urges visitors to use "extreme caution."
Edelman, however, isn't focused on TrafficSolar so much as the seemingly legitimate deals that allowed the site to host Google ads. For those, he blames Infospace, another search engine that dealt directly with Google to broker the ads that were in turn passed on to more than seven other affiliates in a chain of deals that eventually led to TrafficSolar's scheme.
Those tangled arrangements, according to Edelman, should lead Google to cut its ties with Infospace. "It's all well and good for Google to have partners," he says. "But for the partners to have partners who have partners ... it becomes virtually impossible to monitor.
Google owes its advertisers something better than that."
Edelman's interest in Google is less than completely objective. He's currently serving as counsel in a lawsuit by Vulcan Golf alleging misplacement of the company's ads, and he's also worked as a consultant to Microsoft. But he says neither company funded his latest research.
It isn't the first time that Infospace, which didn't respond to a request for comment, has been the target of Edelman's criticism. Since 2005, Edelman has repeatedly accused the company of brokering deals that place ads on people's computers via security exploits and spyware. Even earlier, the company faced lawsuits and ousted its chief executive in 2001 after its stock price lost most than 99% of its value in the dot-com bust.
A Google spokesperson responded in an e-mailed statement that it's the company's policy "to prohibit [advertising] partners from being associated--whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally--with parties who buy traffic in ways that cause a poor user or advertiser experience," and that it responds quickly to any violations of that policy.
As for its ability to detect the new form of click fraud, Google has long argued that it credits advertisers for as much as 10% of their ad spending based on click fraud that the company detects. While the company wouldn't comment on Edelman's TrafficShare example, a spokesperson wrote that the company uses "hundreds of data points" to detect fraud, not just clicks.
In a report last October, click fraud research firm Click Forensics measured click fraud at around 14%, significantly higher than Google's estimates. But even Click Forensics may not be counting the sort of click fraud Edelman accuses TrafficSolar of committing. Because Click Forensics' data is pulled from advertisers, the company can't necessarily detect click fraud that is disguised as real customers and real sales, according to the company's chief executive, Paul Pellman. Pellman believes, however, that the kind of click fraud Edelman discovered is likely mixed with traditional click fraud to increase the scheme's traffic volume while keeping it hidden.
Because the new form of click fraud involves installing spyware, it's likely used at a much smaller scale, Pellman says. But by mixing it with traditional fraudulent traffic, the spyware trick could cause higher-volume scams to seem to result in some sales, and thus lend them credibility.
"This is about adding a bit of what seems like quality traffic to what is otherwise a stream of junk," Pellman says. "It's just another example of how incredibly lucrative click fraud has become for its perpetrators, and the kind of sophistication that they've come up with to protect their income."
Google premieres click-to-call mobile ads
Google recently announced that beginning in January 2010 they will be showing location targeted business phone numbers and addresses in Mobile Ads that are viewed on high end smartphones. This new feature will allow people searching from their mobile device to click-to-call businesses just as easily as they click to visit websites.
This is an exciting development for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising because these click-to-call actions are extremely relevant leads and should be frequently converted into customers. When searches are performed on high-end mobile devices with full HTML browsers (iPhones, Android, Palm WebOS), Google AdWords will communicate with the user’s mobile GPS to determine geographic location of the search. With this information, Google is able to show the phone numbers and business addresses for the closest advertisers which will appear in a fifth line of ad text. This is an extremely convenient development for people who use the mobile browsing capabilities on their phones.
This is not only exciting for potential customers, but for advertisers as well. Advertisers will be charged the exact same way they are charged for clicks to their website and will not incur additional charges for receiving a call from a click. Who doesn’t want more highly targeted, relevant traffic for the same price, right?
In order to make Google AdWords Mobile Ads appear with a location-specific click-to-call phone number, advertisers need to make sure their Google AdWords Campaigns are targeting all mobile devices with full HTML browsers. Phone numbers and business addresses must also be added in the locations section of the Campaign settings.
To learn more about implementing click-to-call Google AdWords Mobile Ads, contact a qualified PPC Management Company.
This is an exciting development for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising because these click-to-call actions are extremely relevant leads and should be frequently converted into customers. When searches are performed on high-end mobile devices with full HTML browsers (iPhones, Android, Palm WebOS), Google AdWords will communicate with the user’s mobile GPS to determine geographic location of the search. With this information, Google is able to show the phone numbers and business addresses for the closest advertisers which will appear in a fifth line of ad text. This is an extremely convenient development for people who use the mobile browsing capabilities on their phones.
This is not only exciting for potential customers, but for advertisers as well. Advertisers will be charged the exact same way they are charged for clicks to their website and will not incur additional charges for receiving a call from a click. Who doesn’t want more highly targeted, relevant traffic for the same price, right?
In order to make Google AdWords Mobile Ads appear with a location-specific click-to-call phone number, advertisers need to make sure their Google AdWords Campaigns are targeting all mobile devices with full HTML browsers. Phone numbers and business addresses must also be added in the locations section of the Campaign settings.
To learn more about implementing click-to-call Google AdWords Mobile Ads, contact a qualified PPC Management Company.
January 05, 2010
CPC: DWI Keywords
220 DWI Keywords (selected states)
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219. dwi canada entry
220. fighting a dwi
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Source: Lazworld.com Inc.
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186. barkley dwi
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193. md dwi
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200. michael phelps dwi
201. joba chamberlain dwi
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215. 1st dwi
216. history of dwi
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218. cost of a dwi
219. dwi canada entry
220. fighting a dwi
221. getting a dwi
Source: Lazworld.com Inc.
January 04, 2010
AOL, Unique Vacations Sue Each Other In Search Marketing Contract Dispute
A $1.2 million dispute between AOL and Unique Vacations about online marketing services has landed in federal court, with both sides alleging that the other broke the contract.
AOL quietly filed suit in August against Unique Vacations, representative of Sandals and Beaches resorts, alleging that the company recently stopped paying bills for Web marketing management services. Unique Vacations countersued for fraud, breach of contract and other claims.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle III in Delaware ruled that Unique Vacations could proceed with its allegations that AOL broke its search marketing services agreement, but not on the fraud claims.
Unique Vacations tapped AOL for online ad services -- including search marketing management -- in 2006, according to the legal papers. Initially, the vacation company agreed to pay a search management fee of 12% of the total amount it paid for clicks. In 2008, Unique Vacations paid $3.7 million for search ads, including around $387,000 paid to AOL for search management services, according to the legal documents.
In late 2008 -- as the economy was reeling -- AOL agreed to slice its fee to 7% for six months, according to the court papers.
Nonetheless, AOL alleges that Unique Vacations stopped paying its invoices in the beginning of 2009.
The companies canceled their search marketing contracts last June, following which AOL filed suit against Unique Vacations to recover around $1,180,000 in unpaid invoices dating back to January of 2009. That figure included the pay-per-click charges as well as AOL's 7% fee.
Unique Vacations countersued for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and breach of good faith and fair dealing. The company alleged that it learned in August of 2008 that AOL "had never provided the search engine management services it had promised." Specifically, the resort company said in its court papers that Platform A did not remove "non-performing" keywords.
"An examination of the one-year history of the non-performing keywords showed that 90% of the keywords generated either no revenue at all or less than 10% of the amount spent by Unique Vacations," the company alleged.
"Despite the non-performance of these keywords, Platform A had continued to maintain these keywords and charge Unique Vacations for clicks on these keywords," Unique Vacations continued. "Remarkably, the audit did not reveal that even one non-performing keyword had ever been removed by Platform A, as should have been the case if Platform-A was properly managing and optimizing the keywords."
AOL asked the court to dismiss all of Unique Vacations' counterclaims. Bartle dismissed the fraud and misrepresentation charges, but said that Unique Vacations could proceed with its breach of contract and breach of good faith claims. He ruled that Unique Vacations' allegations are "sufficient to demonstrate that these claims are 'facially plausible.'"
An AOL spokesperson said Unique Vacations' counterclaim was without merit. "We're confident of our performance under the contract," the spokesperson said.
AOL quietly filed suit in August against Unique Vacations, representative of Sandals and Beaches resorts, alleging that the company recently stopped paying bills for Web marketing management services. Unique Vacations countersued for fraud, breach of contract and other claims.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle III in Delaware ruled that Unique Vacations could proceed with its allegations that AOL broke its search marketing services agreement, but not on the fraud claims.
Unique Vacations tapped AOL for online ad services -- including search marketing management -- in 2006, according to the legal papers. Initially, the vacation company agreed to pay a search management fee of 12% of the total amount it paid for clicks. In 2008, Unique Vacations paid $3.7 million for search ads, including around $387,000 paid to AOL for search management services, according to the legal documents.
In late 2008 -- as the economy was reeling -- AOL agreed to slice its fee to 7% for six months, according to the court papers.
Nonetheless, AOL alleges that Unique Vacations stopped paying its invoices in the beginning of 2009.
The companies canceled their search marketing contracts last June, following which AOL filed suit against Unique Vacations to recover around $1,180,000 in unpaid invoices dating back to January of 2009. That figure included the pay-per-click charges as well as AOL's 7% fee.
Unique Vacations countersued for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and breach of good faith and fair dealing. The company alleged that it learned in August of 2008 that AOL "had never provided the search engine management services it had promised." Specifically, the resort company said in its court papers that Platform A did not remove "non-performing" keywords.
"An examination of the one-year history of the non-performing keywords showed that 90% of the keywords generated either no revenue at all or less than 10% of the amount spent by Unique Vacations," the company alleged.
"Despite the non-performance of these keywords, Platform A had continued to maintain these keywords and charge Unique Vacations for clicks on these keywords," Unique Vacations continued. "Remarkably, the audit did not reveal that even one non-performing keyword had ever been removed by Platform A, as should have been the case if Platform-A was properly managing and optimizing the keywords."
AOL asked the court to dismiss all of Unique Vacations' counterclaims. Bartle dismissed the fraud and misrepresentation charges, but said that Unique Vacations could proceed with its breach of contract and breach of good faith claims. He ruled that Unique Vacations' allegations are "sufficient to demonstrate that these claims are 'facially plausible.'"
An AOL spokesperson said Unique Vacations' counterclaim was without merit. "We're confident of our performance under the contract," the spokesperson said.
December 30, 2009
Search, but You May Not Find
AS we become increasingly dependent on the Internet, we need to be increasingly concerned about how it is regulated. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed “network neutrality” rules, which would prohibit Internet service providers from discriminating against or charging premiums for certain services or applications on the Web. The commission is correct that ensuring equal access to the infrastructure of the Internet is vital, but it errs in directing its regulations only at service providers like AT&T and Comcast.
Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance.
The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because so much market power lies in the hands of one company: Google. With 71 percent of the United States search market (and 90 percent in Britain), Google’s dominance of both search and search advertising gives it overwhelming control. Google’s revenues exceeded $21 billion last year, but this pales next to the hundreds of billions of dollars of other companies’ revenues that Google controls indirectly through its search results and sponsored links.
One way that Google exploits this control is by imposing covert “penalties” that can strike legitimate and useful Web sites, removing them entirely from its search results or placing them so far down the rankings that they will in all likelihood never be found. For three years, my company’s vertical search and price-comparison site, Foundem, was effectively “disappeared” from the Internet in this way.
Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning.
Because of its domination of the global search market and ability to penalize competitors while placing its own services at the top of its search results, Google has a virtually unassailable competitive advantage. And Google can deploy this advantage well beyond the confines of search to any service it chooses. Wherever it does so, incumbents are toppled, new entrants are suppressed and innovation is imperiled.
Google’s treatment of Foundem stifled our growth and constrained the development of our innovative search technology. The preferential placement of Google Maps helped it unseat MapQuest from its position as America’s leading online mapping service virtually overnight. The share price of TomTom, a maker of navigation systems, has fallen by some 40 percent in the weeks since the announcement of Google’s free turn-by-turn satellite navigation service. And RightMove, Britain’s leading real-estate portal, lost 10 percent of its market value this month on the mere rumor that Google planned a real-estate search service here.
Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books.
Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented.
Even AdWords and AdSense, the phenomenally efficient economic engines behind Google’s meteoric success, are essentially borrowed inventions: Google acquired AdSense by purchasing Applied Semantics in 2003; and AdWords, though developed by Google, is used under license from its inventors, Overture.
Google was quick to recognize the threat to openness and innovation posed by the market power of Internet service providers, and has long been a leading proponent of net neutrality. But it now faces a difficult choice. Will it embrace search neutrality as the logical extension to net neutrality that truly protects equal access to the Internet? Or will it try to argue that discriminatory market power is somehow dangerous in the hands of a cable or telecommunications company but harmless in the hands of an overwhelmingly dominant search engine?
The F.C.C. is now inviting public comment on its proposed network neutrality rules, so there is still time to persuade the commission to expand the scope of the regulations. In particular, it should ensure that the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination apply to search engines as well as to service providers. The alternative is an Internet in which innovation can be squashed at will by an all-powerful search engine.
Adam Raff is a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology firm.
Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance.
The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because so much market power lies in the hands of one company: Google. With 71 percent of the United States search market (and 90 percent in Britain), Google’s dominance of both search and search advertising gives it overwhelming control. Google’s revenues exceeded $21 billion last year, but this pales next to the hundreds of billions of dollars of other companies’ revenues that Google controls indirectly through its search results and sponsored links.
One way that Google exploits this control is by imposing covert “penalties” that can strike legitimate and useful Web sites, removing them entirely from its search results or placing them so far down the rankings that they will in all likelihood never be found. For three years, my company’s vertical search and price-comparison site, Foundem, was effectively “disappeared” from the Internet in this way.
Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning.
Because of its domination of the global search market and ability to penalize competitors while placing its own services at the top of its search results, Google has a virtually unassailable competitive advantage. And Google can deploy this advantage well beyond the confines of search to any service it chooses. Wherever it does so, incumbents are toppled, new entrants are suppressed and innovation is imperiled.
Google’s treatment of Foundem stifled our growth and constrained the development of our innovative search technology. The preferential placement of Google Maps helped it unseat MapQuest from its position as America’s leading online mapping service virtually overnight. The share price of TomTom, a maker of navigation systems, has fallen by some 40 percent in the weeks since the announcement of Google’s free turn-by-turn satellite navigation service. And RightMove, Britain’s leading real-estate portal, lost 10 percent of its market value this month on the mere rumor that Google planned a real-estate search service here.
Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books.
Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented.
Even AdWords and AdSense, the phenomenally efficient economic engines behind Google’s meteoric success, are essentially borrowed inventions: Google acquired AdSense by purchasing Applied Semantics in 2003; and AdWords, though developed by Google, is used under license from its inventors, Overture.
Google was quick to recognize the threat to openness and innovation posed by the market power of Internet service providers, and has long been a leading proponent of net neutrality. But it now faces a difficult choice. Will it embrace search neutrality as the logical extension to net neutrality that truly protects equal access to the Internet? Or will it try to argue that discriminatory market power is somehow dangerous in the hands of a cable or telecommunications company but harmless in the hands of an overwhelmingly dominant search engine?
The F.C.C. is now inviting public comment on its proposed network neutrality rules, so there is still time to persuade the commission to expand the scope of the regulations. In particular, it should ensure that the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination apply to search engines as well as to service providers. The alternative is an Internet in which innovation can be squashed at will by an all-powerful search engine.
Adam Raff is a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology firm.
December 21, 2009
Who Gets the Highest Ad Rates Online?
Online ad rates, we're told, are on an express train to zero, helped along by gagillions of impressions generated by Facebook, Twitter and its ilk, and the networks, exchanges and targeting technologies that allow advertisers to buy audience as a commodity, without dealing with individual sites at all.
And while the recession has put another hit on CPMs -- the term ad buyers and sellers use as shorthand for the cost for 1,000 impressions -- across the web, some sites can still pimp fat ad rates either by virtue of their reach, specialized audience or unique environment.
Who's getting the best ad rates on the web today?
Yahoo's Home page - $600,000 a day
CBS March Madness - $70/CPM
HULU - $35/CPM
Daily Candy - $70/CPM
AOL's Home Page - $500,000 to $700,000 a day
You Tube Home Page - $400,000 a day
ABC.com - $45/CPM
Kim Kardashian's Tweet Stream - $10,000 per tweet
WSJ.com Video - $75-$100/CPM
WebMD - $40-$60/CPM
Martha Stuart - $25/CPM
Forbes.com - $90/CPM
Bloomberg.com - $50/CPM
Turner Networks - $500,000 (day long home page exposure)
Espn.com - $22/CPM
Economist.com - $91/CPM (takes over website)
National Enegry Blog - $364/CPM
Linkedin.com - $3 to $75/CPM
And while the recession has put another hit on CPMs -- the term ad buyers and sellers use as shorthand for the cost for 1,000 impressions -- across the web, some sites can still pimp fat ad rates either by virtue of their reach, specialized audience or unique environment.
Who's getting the best ad rates on the web today?
Yahoo's Home page - $600,000 a day
CBS March Madness - $70/CPM
HULU - $35/CPM
Daily Candy - $70/CPM
AOL's Home Page - $500,000 to $700,000 a day
You Tube Home Page - $400,000 a day
ABC.com - $45/CPM
Kim Kardashian's Tweet Stream - $10,000 per tweet
WSJ.com Video - $75-$100/CPM
WebMD - $40-$60/CPM
Martha Stuart - $25/CPM
Forbes.com - $90/CPM
Bloomberg.com - $50/CPM
Turner Networks - $500,000 (day long home page exposure)
Espn.com - $22/CPM
Economist.com - $91/CPM (takes over website)
National Enegry Blog - $364/CPM
Linkedin.com - $3 to $75/CPM
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