Interesting Search Engine Industry Data
Just got back from a dinner in New York, hosted by Majestic Research. The dinner brought together search engine insiders with mutual fund managers and investors to discuss the topic of paid search. John Battelle was the keynote speaker for the dinner and the event was attended by more than 50 people.

I promised John that I would not reveal some of the interesting data he uncovered (at least not until he had a chance to get back to California and blog it first). However, I can reveal some eye-opening info released by Majestic.

* The 3 largest buyers of keywords by category for both Overture and Google are auction sites, broad-based retail companies and comparison shopping sites.

* eBay bids on a large amount of keywords, including celebrity names and letters of the alphabet, paying an average of $0.11 per click.

* The more targeted the keywords, the higher the price-per-click advertisers are willing to pay.

* Roughly 58% of keyword bids on Overture were less than $0.15 per click.

* Narrowly-defined keywords can lead to short-term bidding wars. In March '04, eDiets.com and SouthBeachDiet.com managed to drive the cost-per-click of the phrase "weight loss diet" from $2.00 to over $75.00.

* Worldwide the number of searches at Google grew 10% during March.

John will have some interesting info on click fraud, interest in the Google IPO and other issues. When he posts them, we'll let you know.
Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |