White Hat Media News
30/10/2008 | Google surfs the wave of economic downturn
How Google is handling the economic downturn is high on the list of most people's interests who rely on search for generating business to their websites.
With companies in general tightening their advertising budgets, especially those online, Google has seen their share value fall dramatically in the past year. The good news for them though is that their competitors are finding things even tougher. With budgets tightened businesses are only likely to be looking to advertise where they can get the most exposure for their money and this means Google.
Where Google's earnings came in lower than anticipated with an earnings gain of only 26% for the quarter, Yahoo! have reported same quarter earnings to have fallen 64% and are preparing to make 1500 employees redundant.
The trends of the online advertiser may not only be linked to the so called credit crunch but a change in philosophy of businesses. There has been an increase in the number of pay per click (PPC) advertising being placed by firms as they look for new ways to increase turnover. Pay per click advertising has now grown to 44% of all online advertising with businesses finding it a more accountable form of advertising in these cost cutting times.
Analysts have noticed the change from banner adverts to PPC and eMarketer analyst David Hallerman commented on the recent acceleration, "A recession can often boost a trend that is ongoing regardless."
This is where Google will once again lead the field with its rivals Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL more involved with other forms of online advertising than pay-per-click.
As things move on it seems that the only thing standing in Google's way of getting bigger is with government intervention. Already Google has had its attempt to partner with Yahoo and allow it to host some of its adverts thwarted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, plans that have now been put on the backburner.
What moves the major companies make from here will be led from how they respond to these market changes. With Microsoft already failing with a previous bid for Yahoo! will the time be right for a second attempt and also will these companies then look to target pay per click advertising? Will Google have once again stolen a march on them by then though as the possibility of recession doesn't seem to be holding them back at the moment.
Back to main newsThe number of web requests we have has increased since the launch of the newly developed and formatted web site. Our traffic has improved dramatically and the statistics we are now getting are helping us to hone and re-word the web site to improve this even further.
