Highlights from Adgooroo Search Engine Report - Q4 2009

Quite a few interesting observations and speculations in the latest AdGooroo Search Engine Report for Q4 of 2009.

Report highlights:

1) Total search query volume is steady

2) Increased competition for ad placement (higher ad prices) – does this have to do with all betas Google’s been doing (Product extensions, ad sitelinks)?
I would think the betas impacted this somewhat as the ads opted into them took more ad space than they used in the past, so there was a need for us to bid higher to be in higher positions.

Monthly change in first page advertisers Q4 2009

3) Unusually high click-through rates
I did not notice that. In fact, I’ve seen the opposite of this. December tanked.

4) On December 3, more than 30,000 advertisers (Adgooroo estimate) were permanently suspended from the AdWords system. As this represents approximately 5.3% of active advertisers, it would be reasonable to expect a negative impact on search revenues.

As much as I care about Google’s revenues, I am all about better quality of ads on AdWords. And I did notice that it is harder to find trademark violations on Adwords ads on Google.

5) Ad coverage, which has been steadily climbing for the past 12 months took a sudden and precipitous dive in December, dropping nearly 10% — from 5.48 ads per keyword in November down to 4.97 in December.

No wonder, if over 5% of advertisers have been banned. “Porn”, “drugs”, and other “banned” terms are pretty high volume.

6) Growth in the top 80 US retailers’ Google spend grew from an approximate $264 million in Q3 to about $298 million in Q4 (a 12.5% increase.)

7) While most retail categories were up, several sectors stood out as particularly strong, including traditional retailers (“bricks”), online retailers (“clicks”), clothing, shoes, furniture, and auctions.

Weaker categories included consumer electronics (down 4.2% in Q4), office products (down 13%), children’s goods (down 2%), and home décor (down 15%.)