Google Monetizing Search At Double Over Two Years Ago
In BusinessWeek, analyst Tim Boyd of Caris & Co. used Comscore numbers to determine that Google makes between 19 and 21 cents per search executed, totalling just under $5 billion in the first nine months of this year. To compare, Yahoo monetizes its searches at a rate of 10-11 cents each, which, combined with a lower market share, totals a considerably less $1.6 billion. An even more interesting comparison, as pointed out by Greg Linden, is that Google is now earning more than twice what it did two years ago, up from 9 cents a search in December 2004.
All this means that not only does Google have the most inventory, but they are squeezing the most money out of that inventory, a lethal combination Yahoo just can’t meet. Yahoo’s new Panama system is designed to get a higher amount per search, but without the market share, its doubtful Yahoo has any means of catching Google soon.
In other news, Google’s Blogsearch has topped Technorati, pulling in 25% of the blog search market. The reason: positioning the link in the “More” box on the Google homepage and search tabs. This means one interesting thing: Google users have noticed the “More” link and tried it out, more so than I would have expected. The “More” box is a good bit of positioning and product promotion, a sort of secondary level of promotion for a company desperate to promote a lot of failing services.
We can only hope Google uses it wisely, not filling the box with too many links to be useful to users.
Read more at the Hitwise blog.
Also, TechCrunch posts about Google’s Zeitgeist, and Google’s statement explaining the confusion. As they and GigaOm note, Google’s methodology renders the results meaningless, making Google’s Zeitgeist quite the opposite of a “sign of the times”.
Also (I swear, it’s the last one!), news is coming in that Comscore and Nielsen plan to add YouTube to the official metrics of Google websites early next year, which will represent the unofficial coronation of Google as king of traffic on the internet. Combined with YouTube, Google will have more visitors than any other web company, and you know someone at Google is trying to figure out how to beat the age-old “nowhere to go but down” problem. Put enough PhDs on it, you’ll find a solution. Maybe.
“We can only hope Google uses it wisely, not filling the box with too many links to be useful to users.”
As long as I won’t have to re-enter my query every time I want my Google search query to be done in a different section that isn’t one of the tabs at the top of their search page… It’d be fine by me.
Comment by Tim | January 1, 2007