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Pay Per Click Search or Lost Per Click Search?

by: Keith Londrie

While many companies exist in this pay per click search space, the two largest search engines Google and Yahoo! are the largest network operators as of 2006. Microsoft (MSN) has started beta testing their pay per click search services - MSN adCenter. Depending on the search engine's market reach, minimum price per click varies from one cent to fifty cents. Common search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Very popular keywords that draw lots of prospective customers are probably well known to other businesses in your industry. With everyone vying for the same keywords, the price can be jacked up to several dollars per click! However, most pay-per-click (PPC) programs are plagued by claims of click fraud. Abuse of the pay-per-click advertising model can result in click fraud. Fraudulent clicks are usually not well detected by smaller PPC engines. It is therefore advisable that the best returns of investment may be from the two big engines.

Major pay per click search engine programs, Google AdSense and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture, Go-To) have publicly admitted that click fraud is a problem that is a significant threat, not just to their "business model" but to their overall success. In their recent IPO S1 filing this year Google admitted: "We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members. If we are unable to remain competitive and provide value to our advertisers, they may stop placing ads with us, which would negatively affect our net revenues and business." That was something for giant Google to state publicly.

However, pay per click search can actually pay off. Increasingly, small and medium businesses find it necessary to pay for search engine ranking and advertising in order to boost their sales. The primary goal of the advertiser is not to generate thousands of clicks, but to attract a potential customer or actual buyer with each click-through. The largest search engine on the web, Google, does rewards with higher or more frequent placement for the ads that generate the most click-through. As of 2005, notable pay per click search engines included: Google, Yahoo!, Miva (formerly FindWhat), SearchFeed, Enhance (formerly Ah-Ha), GoClick, 7Search, Kanoodle, ePilot, Kazazz, Pricethat, Search FAST and others.

It seems that the search engine model to follow these days is that of Google. Not meaning to say the others can't be profitable, just stating that the largest search engine model available today is Google. Google is this author's favorite.

Keith Londrie II is a well known author. He has written many great articles on many topics, including pay-per-click search engines. For more information, please visit http://www.pay-per-click-info.info/ You may also be interested in Keith's other offerings at http://keithlondrie.com