Google passes Yahoo as #1 Web Desintation

Google passed Yahoo in its share of monthly visitors in the United States for the first time this April, buoyed by growth in search and YouTube videos, according to ComScore statistics released Thursday.

However, underscoring the variability of this sort of measurement, which extrapolates overall data from the usage of a "panel" of users at home and work, ComScore rival Nielsen Online released its own data as well with some different results. Although it also showed Google as No. 1 in terms of unique users, it said Google passed Yahoo way back in January 2007.
ComScore said Google sites had 141.1 million unique visitors in April, a tad ahead of Yahoo's 140.6 million. Microsoft was in third at 121.2 million, with AOL at 111.3 million.
Nielsen's data showed Google at 128.2 million, Microsoft at 122.1 million, and Yahoo at 117.1 million.

Nielsen also provides information on time spent at the sites, though. There, Yahoo leads its rivals with 3 hours and 9 minutes per month, but AOL owner Time Warner leads Yahoo at 3 hours 40 minutes per month.

Microsoft's usage was 2 hours and 17 minutes, and Google was 1 hour and 47 minutes, Nielsen said.

Yahoo Seeks Open Alliance With Google

Yahoo! executives are scrambling to finalize a search-advertising pact with Google in the face of a fresh challenge to its independence from billionaire investor Carl Icahn, The Post has learned.

According to two sources close to the situation, Yahoo! hopes to announce the deal within the next week.

The two companies plan to structure a deal as an "open platform" system, which would allow not only Yahoo! and Google, but also Microsoft, AOL, Ask.com and anyone else to bid for the right to serve up ads tied to keyword searches.

These sources said Google General Counsel Kent Walker is working hard on the precise structure and language of the deal in the hopes of minimizing regulatory scrutiny, though both companies view an outsourcing deal as having no more regulatory risk than would a merger with Microsoft.

But some observers said the deal's structure was aimed at creating the false sense of a level playing field.

"Given the way the ecosystem is put together now, Google would probably be the winner in a vast majority of cases," said Kevin Lee, chairman of search engine marketing firm Did-It.

Michael Kassan, the founder of advertising consulting firm Media Link, and a strategic adviser to Microsoft, was less subtle. "They can call it anything they want, but at the end of the day, it's still rigged so that Google wins every time," he said.

A source close to Yahoo! counters, however, that Google's acumen in search advertising doesn't make the structure anti-competitive.

"It's not unfair just because a company is a good at what they do," the source said.

Source: NY Post

Yahoo gaining in search dollar share: RBC

A STUDY FROM ATLANTA-BASED SEARCHIGNITE and RBC Capital Markets reveals that overall search spending rose in 3Q 07 by almost 2%, and more marketers chose to use those incremental dollars with Yahoo than Google.

SearchIgnite and RBC routinely partner to release insights on market share and revenue per search of Google, Yahoo and other players in the search space--using spending data from more than 500 marketers (all of whom are clients of SearchIgnite or sister search firm, 360i).

This quarter's study, entitled "Summer Heats up for Yahoo," tracked impressions and clicks across Yahoo, Google and MSN from January of 2006 through the end of September 2007. Yahoo releases its quarterly earnings this afternoon.

The research found that advertisers were spending more in Q3 than Q2--and that they were more apt to put those extra dollars into Yahoo, as Yahoo's percentage of incremental media spend increased by 7.8% in Q3.

The Web giant's uptick was buoyed by increases in July and August (and slightly tempered by a dip in September). Meanwhile, marketer spend on Google dipped in July and August and jumped back up in September--but overall spending on a same-client basis only increased by 0.8%.

It's not a seismic shift--as Google still retained a more than 70% share of search media spend in Q3, compared to Yahoo's roughly 20%. But according to Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite, the shifts in incremental spending represent a definite opportunity for Yahoo to gain market share--if the Web giant can continue to deliver valuable, more cost-effective clicks and impressions in the eyes of search marketers.

"This is not saying that Yahoo severely eroded market share in terms of media being spent--but the increase in incremental dollars was remarkable over the short term," said Barnette. "In past quarters, if clients had extra dollars to spend, they almost always went more to Google than Yahoo. But in Q3, the vast majority of those dollars went to Yahoo--and it's a positive trend that if sustained, could help them gain meaningful market share."

Yahoo also saw improvement in share of overall media spend in Q3 07--inching up by almost 2 percentage points--the first reversal of overall share since the Web giant's Panama-related boost in February. In addition, Yahoo's quarter-over-quarter share of impressions lifted by more than 6 percentage points.

Meanwhile, a closer analysis of Google's share of impressions--specifically from August to September--yields insight into where search marketers' views of Yahoo's superior ad performance could have stemmed from.

Google countered the "summer search slump" by delivering 62% of all search ad impressions in September--an increase of nearly 8 percentage points from August--but the increase was flanked by almost an entire percentage point drop in click-through rates.

Whether search marketers will continue to funnel their incremental search dollars into Yahoo in the hopes of better-performing ads or lower CPCs remains to be seen--as Q4 will yield insight into whether recent changes to the Web giant's algorithm and the launch of features like Search Assist cause an increase in overall search volume and user retention.

Insiders say that if Yahoo's Search Marketing business is any indication of how the rest of the company performed in Q3--then Tuesday's earnings call could yield better numbers for shareholders than Q2's.

"The view of Yahoo that we have access to isn't the only thing that affects their stock price, but the search marketing piece of their business seems to have a lot more momentum than last quarter," said Barnette. "If it's a bellwether for the rest of the business, then the Q3 earnings reports could be a pleasant surprise."

Source: MediaPost