Free Google Analytics
Urchin on demand:
- yesterday $199 a month
- today free
Blackhat SEOs may be leery of using Google for analytics, but regular site owners should be reassured.
Reassured of what? That Google wants more exceptionally valuable user data :) Lest we forget what a click is worth, or that what is acceptable in search marketing changes as the algorithms do.
Worried Google will use your data or the data overall to better understand how much you are willing to pay for ads, based on conversions. Google said that's definitely not done, nor are there any plans to do that. Nor are there any plans to tap into the data as a means of improving regular search results or to identify "bad" sites, Google said.
Peter asks where that info came from, and I gotta wonder how smart pricing works if they ignore the value received from a click. Why would they only track it one way on certain accounts? That seems counter to that whole efficient keyword market theory so much research is being done on. What value does the data have if they are not going to use it?
Even if they only use your data in aggregate, if you are exceptionally profitable on some terms those keywords could be suggested more frequently to competitors (to help raise those keywords to near fair market value), and the smart pricing would discount less on content that your site proves converts. Search engines do not need to know how much money you are making off any term, just a peak at the ratios can help give them a good idea when they have enough other data.
You know the search engine wars are at their peak the day most computers, ISP, and general web hosting is free and you are being paid to surf. :)
Comments
It appears to me that the new Adwords keyword tool may be using keywords taken from other competitors accounts to make suggestions.
I don't see anything that would prevent Google from using its wealth of collected information to improve its services (its profitability).
Google knows that smarter marketers means more AdWords advertising, and that's the reason for Google analytics. Some have argued that companies who are measuring their efforts can actually realize they are wasting money in search marketing and as a result reduce their spend.
But smart companies will learn how to better apply their spend in search marketing, not reduce it - and that's what Google is really counting on. As companies realize better marketing results, they'll be apt to increase their spend. They will only get better results by treating the Internet as the direct marketing medium it has become.
Measurement is half the battle, and Google's recent move to integrate Urchin analytics will certainly elevate awareness among many marketers.
I think it also means that days of "gaming" AdWords campaigns to get a better ROI are slowly coming to end. With increasingly more data, Google will be able to charge higher for areas previously undervalued.
Indeed it seems keyword prices have already risen a lot since the glory days of Adwords campaigns. Unlike in those earlier times when you could throw hundreds of keywords into a campaign and expect to only pay a nickel a click on many of them and do so regarless of their relevance to the product you are promoting, Google now forces you to bid top dollar for keywords on new campaigns if your previous CTR was less than stellar. And they even do that on words or phrases no one else is bidding on. With the increased knowledge Google will gain from Google Analytics, it will only become harder to find untapped keyword niches and to use those keywords at a discount.
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