Veronica Portas

CS 312

Google’s Success

Google’s algorithms have made it one of the most successful search engines on the web. When Google first started the advertisers were paid a certain percentage based on how many clicks the site received. Since then Google has changed its ways because they realized that “all clicks are not created equal”. (Leger) Google has developed complicated algorithms for their search engine, some of them have been shared with the public but Google tried to keep it on the secret side so companies will not be able to take advantage of them.

Smart Pricing is used by Google to determine rankings; smart pricing “assigns each click a value based on a variety of factors…Variables include site on which the ad appears, and the portion of the site where the ad appears.”(Parker) Smart Pricing considers how many visitors and how they use those sites. Depending on how many people that click the ads and convert into customers the ranking will increase. “If your clicks converted well, you would be well paid. If they convert badly, you would be paid less per click. “(Leger) One way to get around this is to make themed websites. Websites that revolve around just one idea tend to rank higher then those that have a lot of topics. Domains that use keywords also are proven to be more successful. Smart pricing also calculates the “value” of a site once a week. So one week a website can be worth more then the next. There are debates about Smart Pricing because some think that “it shouldn’t be up to the publisher to convert traffic.” But on the other hand Smart Pricing has helped advertisers keep a good return on investment. “They say that “bad” traffic that doesn’t convert well should not cost as much as “good” traffic that does.”(Leger)

By using these complicated algorithms and Smart Pricing, 99% of Google’s revenue is accounted for by the advertising. Some search engines like Yahoo have taken the approach of giving the top spots to the advertisers who pay the most per click. But it seems as though Yahoo is trying to convert to the Google way. AdWords advertisers certainly changed search engines forever.

Sources:

Coy Peter, The Secret To Google’s Success ,

< http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060224/bs_bw/b397407> 2-24-2006

Leger Jonathan, SmartPricing killing your AdSense earnings? <http://www.zillionbits.com/misc/smartpricing-killing-your-adsense-earnings/> 02-26-2006

Parker Pamela, Google Unveils "Smart Pricing" for Content Ads <http://www.clickz.com/news/print.php/3334761> 4-1-2004