This week, we're taking a look at the increasing cost of pay per click advertising.

In the news: Yahoo acquires an email search developer and enters a partnership with Adobe, Microsoft announces its own desktop search tool and more.

Table of contents:

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your web site. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

The price for the top spot on Overture.com for "data recovery" is currently US$4.30 per click. Google displays an average cost pay click of US$9,10 for that keyword. That's quite a lot for a single click. But do you get what you're paying for?

US$10 million for consumers that do not exist

Click fraud is the practice of skewing pay-per-click advertising data by generating illegitimate hits. Some statistics claim that as much as 50 percent of pay per click advertising in some competitive categories could be the product of bogus clickers.

"John Squire, vice president for product marketing for Coremetrics, which provides consulting and Web analysis for online merchants like Eddie Bauer, OfficeMax and CompUSA, estimated that the company's clients were spending about US$10 million a year on fraudulent clicks. That is, they are spending about US$10 million on consumers that do not exist."

Click fraud is done by traffic affiliate partners of PPC search engines who make a commission on paid clicks generated by their web site visitors and by competitors who want to decrease the effectiveness of your pay per click campaign.

Some of them hire human clickers or use automated programs that click the paid listings for them. More information about click fraud and the different methods can be found in these articles:

• Scam tricks advertisers into paying for phantoms
• Click fraud: state of the industry
• Click fraud rises with online ad spending
• India's secret army of online ad 'clickers'

What does this mean to you?

Pay per click advertising can be a good way to quickly get visitors to your web site. However, pay per click advertising should only supplement your normal search engine optimization activities.

It should not be your main way of getting search engine traffic. Track the return on investment for your pay per click campaigns to make sure that pay per click advertising really works for you.

A Consumer WebWatch study showed that web surfers prefer non-paid search engine listings. For this reason, it's better to get high rankings in the normal search engine results. High rankings in search engines will bring your web site targeted visitors without paying for every single click.

Yahoo acquires email search developer Stata Labs

Yahoo has acquired privately held e-mail search company Stata Labs. Stata Labs sold the software product Bloomba, which allows users to search e-mail and attachments in their in-boxes and to share schedules.

"We are pleased to announce that Stata Labs has been acquired by Yahoo!. We are thrilled to join Yahoo!'s industry-leading team of technical experts. This acquisition will provide Yahoo! with exceptional technological expertise and strategic assets."

Yahoo, Adobe team up for new web services

"Yahoo Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. have joined forces to tap each others' customers and put Web search features into Adobe's popular Acrobat Reader software. [...]

Under the deal, Adobe will first introduce a cobranded Yahoo browser toolbar that users can choose to install on their computers when prompted to download an update of Acrobat Reader."

Microsoft fixes date for desktop search tool

"Microsoft said an MSN-branded tool would be made available before the end of 2004. The tool and an algorithmic Web searching engine will be in beta testing by year's end."

Google overtakes Yahoo in market cap

"Shares of Internet search darling Google Inc. surged for a third day Monday, vaulting the company's market value above that of rival Yahoo Inc., to more than US$50 billion, just two months after Google's initial public offering."

Search engine newslets

• UpSnap is a new search engine for cell phones.
• UKWizz is a new search engine for the United Kingdom (it has just been added to IBP).
• Blabble is a new blog search engine.

An interview with Paulien Strijland of Yahoo! User Experience Design

"Paulien Strijland is Yahoo!'s director of User Experience Design (UED) for Search and Marketplace. [...] I sat down with Paulien over coffee last week as she shared her thoughts on user design and the world beyond Yahoo!"

Google rules out becoming net portal

"In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Schmidt said Google would not seek to turn its website into a broader internet portal, a move that would take it into more direct competition with Microsoft and Yahoo. [...] 'We are not building a browser,' Mr Schmidt said."

If Google were elected to run the country today

"What if we elected Google to run this country? A refreshing departure, perhaps. Here's what we could expect."

It takes time for online users to become buyers

"Despite the well-established nature of the Internet as a shopping channel, security remains the biggest hurdle. Among users who mainly use the Internet for research and then purchase offline, 50% said that they didn't want to submit their credit card details online."

Local Search: comprehensiveness or precision?

"Google is more about comprehensiveness, and Yahoo! more about precision. [...] At a certain definitional level, I can see his point."

"ARELIS really is a terrific piece of software."

"I've owned ARELIS Pro for a few months now, and I'm finding myself pleasantly surprised over time as I discover more and more useful, thoughtful features. My appreciation for ARELIS has grown the longer I've used it. It really is a terrific piece of software. I would literally be at a loss without it."
Jack Robinson, www.nomorecoldsore.net

"We are now ranked very highly!"

"Axandra really has made a MAJOR impact on our websites. We are now ranked very highly, and all within a very short time!! IBP is a package that we all should have."
Mandy Thomson, www.hotelbookingwizard.com

Just send us some words about your successes with IBP or ARELIS and you might get featured in this newsletter along with your web site address.

• Google Desktop Search
• Google's new ranking algorithm
• Google's new web page spider
• Why valid HTML code is important to your web site
• Amazon's new search engine A9
• Use Internet directories to get more visitors
• View all past issues...