According to recent articles, the amount of money being spent on paid internet searches (such asPPC) has notably risen. Between 2008-2009 there was a 14% rise. Many believe the increase in paid searches can be due to the retail industry being down, leaving more opportunity for non-retail related businesses and consumers to make purchases on the  internet. Search engine sites, such as Bing, are up an impressive 26%, with Google up 15.9% for paid searches.

Paid searches on the internet continue to grow strong and prove to be beneficial to websites on the internet. Leadpile works with PPC publishers to help maximize a site’s potential and bring in consumers who are looking for a service.

We’ve discussed the topic of Google’s presence in China a couple times, and it looks like it’s time to revisit the topic again.  It appears China has decided to renew its license with Google to continue using its search address Google.cn. In March, Google had begun redirecting search queries from China’s mainland to a version of its search engine that is not censored in Hong Kong.  Google stopped redirecting two weeks after the government indicated it would not renew its license if the company continued this practice.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt commented at a news conference, “Our operations in China are completely at the discretion of the Chinese government.  I don’t want anyone to be confused about that.”

During the standoff with Beijing, Google did lose some of its search share to other rivals such as Baidu.com. Other Google services continue to be popular such as its email service, Gmail.  Other services provided by Google such as YouTube continue to be blocked by China.

Under the renewed license, Google.cn requires visitors to click on an image in order to be redirected to the Hong Kong site for web searches.  Music search features, product searches and translation services have also recently been made accessible from Google.cn itself recently.

It will be interesting to see if the new 2-click requirement for Google will restrict its commercial ability to make the ad revenue it has long profited from.

Spending on Internet advertising in the US should “almost completely recover” this year according to the IDC.

With Search and Mobile advertising seeing the largest growth.

Search revenue is expected to increase from 13.8 billion to 27.3 billion between 2009 and 2014. Mobile will see an astonishing growth of 220 million to 1.8 billion.

Currently Google holds a 64% share in the US search market with Yahoo at 18% and Microsoft at 12%. With Yahoo recently agreeing to outsource its search to Microsoft and Google’s proposed $750 million purchase of Admob it will be interesting to see how these big players affect online and offline advertising.

Years and years have gone by since Microsoft initially rolled out the Microsoft Office portfolio of applications.
Since it’s original launch, Google has rolled out similar (but not as successful) applications.
Reuters is reporting that Microsoft has announced several improvements to the Office applications. The updated Microsoft Office applications (ie- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook etc) will allow users to edit photos in Word, use video in PowerPoint, and connect email (Outlook) contacts to Facebook information. Unfortunately, there is a pricey price tag associated with these new applications (between $100-$500), yet the similar products that Google rolled out 4 years ago is roughly $50 a year per user for companies, and free for consumers.
It seems Microsoft is trying to keep on their toes with innovative advancements on their Office applications to try and keep up with other applications such as the Google Docs. However, I will say Microsoft does have one up on the Google products, and that is most business’s PCs contain the Office products, and not Google Docs.
Will this Google Microsoft war ever end?

April 1st is known as a great day for practical jokes, and it’s not just for friends and family anymore! When you go to “Google” something today, you might be surprised to see the name “Topeka” in place of normally seen Google name.

Topeka, a city in Kansas nick named the “top city” has recently announced that it will be changing its name to Google – to recognize this, Google decided to change its name to Topeka. According to Google Topeka, the word Topeka is derived from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes”. Google Topeka is one of the web’s top places to dig for information.

To be clear that everyone understands how to speak “Topeka” the following proper usage guide has been provide:

Happy April Fool’s Day! If you have to think twice about something today… Be careful, it might be a trick!

We all had heard that Google put restrictions on China users because of a potential cyber attack(s) that had originated in China, however now GoDaddy is planning on doing this too. Reuters is reporting that GoDaddy will stop registering domains in China, however will maintain/service the .cn domain names that already exist. “We believe that many of the current abuses of the Internet originating in China are due to a lack of enforcement against criminal activities by the Chinese government,” Christine Jones, Go Daddy Group Inc general counsel, told a congressional commission hearing on Wednesday.”
GoDaddy has seen several attacks that seem to be originating in China, and this has prompted them to join forces with Google to protest China and the potential attacks. This brings up the issue again of internet censorship and companies putting principle over profits? Should more companies think this way and jump on the Google bandwagon, or is this not something fair that these US companies are doing to China?

Google announced today that it will shift its search engine off the mainland but will not close doors completely. Google and China have had an on-going dispute over recent months regarding restricting search results. There had been talks that Google would pull out completely from the Chinese market, however has decided to remain most likely due to its desire to profit from an explosively growing market.

According to the Associated Press, effective this afternoon, visitors to Google.cn are being redirected to Google’s Chinese language service based in Hong Kong. Results on these pages are not censored by Google, but the Chinese government filters can still restrict results that are viewed by mainland audiences.

Google originally set up a search engine in China in 2006. Currently about 700 or Google’s 20,000 employees are in China.

No really? The social networking site Facebook has hit it BIG because it passed Google in the number of visitors coming to their site. Information Week stated, “For the week ending March 13, Facebook accounted for 7.07% of all U.S. Internet visits, while Google accounted for 7.03%, according to Hitwise. It was the first time Facebook had held the No. 1 spot for a week.” This is great news for Facebook, because this sort of ranking could potentially help them out financially. So, who will benefit besides Facebook themselves on this sort of increased ranking?
In the lead generation space I wish there was maybe some additional opportunity for this mega social networking site to be able to truly produce some great lead generation results. I have yet so see a publisher we work with at Leadpile that is effectively using Facebook to generate leads. What needs to happen in order for Affiliate Marketing to truly be able to capitalize on this site, or are there publishers that are showing success with monetizing Facebook traffic? I would like to speak with them if it is happening!
Great job Facebook… keep doing what you are doing, because it’s working!

Technology these days is something that continues to be so innovative with what new concepts get rolled out. The newest concept that ceases to surprise me is the idea of having testing going on for a TV search engine. NPR news is reporting that Google and Dish Network are teaming up to bring together a search engine to our television sets (specifically Dish Network clients). This is only in a test mode, however if the testing goes successfully, Dish Network clients could utilize their televisions to search the television programming while also searching the internet for video services such as Hulu or YouTube. So is this really that big of a deal, or is this something really innovative that other television network providers are going to want to be a part of? Does this affect the Google search engine and how companies like Leadpile utilize it to generate traffic? I guess time will really tell with this one.

A couple years ago, there was an article that came out about the impact of the Google and does it really make us not use our brains? The verdict on this is up in the air, but one group did a study to detmine the impact the internet has on all of us. This study found that actually the internet helps to make us all smarter. “Most of the respondents also said the Internet would improve reading and writing by 2020, according to the study, conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University in North Carolina and the Pew Internet and American Life project. Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge, said study co-author Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Center.”
I think studies like this have come up, determining if the internet really affects our intelligence, because the use of the internet and the power of it are indescribable. What else is there in this world that has so much inpact and access to so many people in this world? Of course there are going to be skeptics that think that it is making us “stupid”, but then again (like this study) many feel that the internet is truly something that is changing the way we think. So what do YOU think? OR don’t you?

As a follow up to our recent post discussing China’s Internet censorship and regulations, Google has now pulled the plug on launching it’s cell phone in China. Google’s mobile phones equipped with Internet applications were decided by the company to be “not a good experience” for the consumer. Currently, China has over 700 million mobile phone accounts and consumers driven by the latest technology.
According to the Associated Press, it has been rumored that Google has threatened to shut its Chinese-based search engine if the restrictions are not eased. The Chinese government is standing strong on it’s decision that “Foreign enterprises in China need to adhere to China’s laws and regulations, respect and the interests of the general public and cultural traditions and shoulder corresponding responsibilities. Google is no exception,” as stated by a Foreign ministry spokesman at a new briefin
It will be interesting to watch this controversy unfold as many Chinese and foreign businesses rely on Google’s email and maps…If Google is blocked and access is restricted it could certainly disrupt things!

In the last year or so we have talked about the controversy over China blocking certain websites from being viewed by the Chinese residents. Unfortunately, it seems there might be another website “victim” being added to this now long list – Wired.com. There doesn’t seem to be any common factor involved in the websites that this country continues to block, except for the fact that these sites are too dangerous. Currently, the sites blocked are: YouTube, Facebook, the BBC, Wikipedia, Google and a movie information site called IMBD. So does this sort of restriction prevent affiliate marketing from happening in China? Many use some of the banned sites as a source for traffic and some are even working with Leadpile……and WHAT is so “dangerous” about Google? I don’t get it! What will be next?