Interesting Artivcle

[MazY]

Just grabbed this...

Paid Search Engines Endure Advertising Slowdown (http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,,12_856381,00.html)

A tad over-optimistic if you ask me but nice to see a highly-buffed gloss put over something.

[Mel]

Hi MazY:

What a story!!!! Being in a rather slow mood today let me take a moment to disect this article


Paid search placement models are succeeding because consumers are finding relevant listings much faster on paid search engines

Well if you believe that the results from PPC engines are more RELEVANT than those from search engines........ perhaps you did just land from Mars.



Media Metrix ratings data reveal that visitors to Goto.com, a paid search engine, spend an average of just 56 minutes on the site, while the average user of Yahoo's proprietary search engine spend 106 minutes. Jupiter analysts see this as a sign that consumers are much more satisfied with their findings from paid search engines.


Hmmm ..... and hummmmm ..... must be a new theory from Jupiter (the Planet?), since previously the longer the time spent on a search engine the more favorable it was considered.

LookSmart, another paid search engine, fared much better than others in the ....


Well there you go - it just goes to show you how far behind the times I am, since I always thought that Looksmart was a Directory raather than a pay for placement search engine....


But wait a moment ... suppose these really are visitors from outer space and they have been in a time warp - Perhaps they are reporting on the state of the search engine market a few years hence, in which case we have just been treated to a vision of the future - I hope so because I can't figure it out otherwise

[ihelpyou]

Funny how ya never see mention of ALL the fraud that can be involved with PPC engines and how competitors can drain your account on the drop of a dime and you not even realize it.

Very quick to always put the good spin on things....

[JuniorHarris]

Very good points Mel!~

[Blue]

What I found interesting was that Jupiter Media Metrix, in this article alludes to the fact that "Paid Search Engines Endure Advertising Slowdown", while in the "related Story" below the end of the article, it is stated that "The actual return on investment (ROI) from online advertising is likely 25 to 35 percent higher than most marketers believe...".

[Sharon & Roy]

A tad over-optimistic if you ask me but nice to see a highly-buffed gloss put over something.

In a similar article (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-30-2001/0001543925&EDATE=) it also shows the following chart ...


Table B: Total Usage Minutes For Major Search Engines

Search Engine Average Monthly Minutes/User

------------- ----------------------------

Google 269

AskJeeves 190

MSN 140

Yahoo! 106

GoTo 56

Jupiter Online Advertising Forum



Correct us if we're wrong, but if you are a potential "buyer" or "investor" in Google or in Goto, based on the above numbers wouldn't you go with Google?

And since when can you determine that folks are finding what they are looking for quicker on Goto and leaving the Site, rather than they got frustrated quicker and left because they did NOT find what they wanted, based solely on the amount of time spent on the Site?

And folks are simply "camping out" at Google because they are finding way more relevant stuff than they can view in 56 minutes and don't want to "leave" their great results page they just found.

How sad this article is for those who are reading this and brand new to Internet Marketing ... how sad indeed!

[Blue]

Yeppers.

Sounds very feasible to me! I think that people are spending more time on these engines because they are finding the results MORE relevant, and thus come back more often when they do another search.

After all, the table shown didn't specify in what amounts of time users were staying. It could mean that users spent 3 times as much time doing 3 times as many searches, because the found the relevancy 3 times as good with the non-PPC's. And spent 3 times as little time WITH the PPC's because they were 3 times as frustrated by not finding relevant or "honest" results.

[Mel]

Hi All:

In all fairness I believe that the surfing habits of GoTo customers may be different as a group. These are generally people who want to BUY some specific item and its either advertised there or not, so I for one do not spend much time surfing around there.

As an example if you are a student researching a particular subject GoTo would be the last place to go to (pun intended), and if you did go there you would leave quickly, and go to perhaps Google or Yahoo where you would spend a lot of time reviewing all the resources you would turn up.

If the same college student were looking for a particular piece of software to purchase and download, GoTo might be a very efficient place to go, and he would probably not spend much time making the purchase.

[ihelpyou]

Sharon and Roy bring up a good point. These forums are averaging 15 minutes per user visit. This includes all visitors on a daily visit. This is total average time on the site at one time. Not including a visitor coming back that day, but a visitors time spent in one session.

Now, if our visitors were not interested, do you really believe that they/we spend that much time per visit here for the H of it?? Don't think so.

This is what that article is basically saying. Does not make any sense. They have it backwords IMO.

[MazY]

Doug.

Are those figures not subject to a little distortion of their own though? Given that, like you, I tend to just minimize the browser window and get on with other stuff which means that including yourself, there are at least two people who are almost constantly logged on. These figures would be included within that average, yes?

Now, given that there are not that many new visitors each day, then these figures become even more diluted as you and I and all others that do same (minimize the browser and get on with other stuff) are essentially bloating the average "per minute per visitor". Have I got that right?

[ihelpyou]

Well, not really, as I have the timing thingy set so that if there is inactivity after so long, it will log out the visitor. Of course, when the visitor comes back again, the time starts again.

I know there are Many times throughout the day that my window is minimized with no activity on the forums. At that point, I am logged out for that session.

So I do think it is fairly accurate as I wanted to get a feel as to the averages. And actually, we do have quite a few new visitors daily, some of which spend one minute here and some spend one hour. A few become members, and some never become members.... at least not yet. :)

But what the GoTo thing tells me is that users do not like to stay there very long. BUT, they do like Google. Just common sense.

[ihelpyou]

Also consider this food for thought. You know that users logged on are shown at the bottom. Well, even when a member or visitor leaves the forum, we see the member's name in the little box for about 10 minutes after they really leave. Cannot change that either.

Food for thought.....

[MazY]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
And actually, we do have quite a few new visitors daily, some of which spend one minute here and some spend one hour.

Ah - the guests? I didn't think of them.