Google sponsored links - does anyone use them?

[slimtim]

Does anyone on here run/own/work for a company that uses, or would contemplate using google sponsored links. These are the links you see on the right hand side when you carry out a search in google and companies/individuals pay a certain amount per click.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?clien...=Google+Search

Here is an example, I have searched for "rib" and it seems RIVA has a sponsored link

Anyway. I would be interested to know who uses these links as a friend of mine iis setting up an online advertising management company and is checking out the demand for this kind of work.

Thanks in advance.

Tim

[codprawn]

Crazy but until you mentioned it I never looked!!!

I tend to just focus on what I want but I am far from being a typical case!!!

[Alice]

That's how Google make money. It's free to have the ad. you pay everytime somebody "clicks" on it. Google have had huge problems in the States with "Fraud Clicking". This is when competitors etc click away to rack up a bill for the company advertising. It threatens to seriously undermine Googles vast value.

[slimtim]

yeah I guess there are problems and loop holes, just as there is with every thing on the internet! I do know that they can be very effective in increasing traffic to a website and therefore sales.

All comments welcome!

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by slimtim

These are the links you see on the right hand side when you carry out a search in google and companies/individuals pay a certain amount per click.

They are also the adverts you see on RIBnet

I have used them before, and would certainly use them again.

John

[MikeCC]

Yes - for good or bad, I spend a fair amount on it every month.

They do work - not necessarily on the first clickthrough though - they may be just browsing and come back later for buying/contact.

There are loads and loads of SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimisation) companies out there. It's a competitive albeit growing market. Web analytics (ie knowing what works) is a whole section of the business again.

There's a lot of BS around it as well. You don't actually have to that technically clued-up to get reasonable results. It's as much about legwork in thinking about how people look for things and why they might be looking. I managed to get a (somewhat specialist) site up from nowhere to first page on Google with just a few sensible tweaks to the content. (Not on adwords, just content)

There's several internet marketing trade shows every year - open to any bona fide individual (ie don't say you're a student!) eg see Internet World

AFAIK, Google fixed the multi-click problem. I was told you should only get charged a max of 2 clickthroughs per ad from any IP address. Not sure how that works with multi-PCs through 1 IP conntection though.

Codders - I just can't believe you don't look at them with the amount of time you spend online!!!!!!!?????

Good luck to your pal if he goes for it.

[codprawn]

[QUOTE=MikeCC

Codders - I just can't believe you don't look at them with the amount of time you spend online!!!!!!!?????

Good luck to your pal if he goes for it. [/QUOTE]

I think my brain must filter out things I don't want to see or something!!!

I didn't even notice the ads on Ribnet - sorry John!!!

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by codprawn

I didn't even notice the ads on Ribnet - sorry John!!!

That's fine. I don't want them to overwhelm the content of the site anyway.

Anyone who doesn't want to see them can opt out, but I've left them on as I find it interesting to see who's advertising

John

[roycruse]

I tend to look at them usually if what im looking for hasnt shown up on the first page of a normal search - i will glance over and check the ads...

[donutsina911]

Originally Posted by MikeCC

There are loads and loads of SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimisation) companies out there. It's a competitive albeit growing market. Web analytics (ie knowing what works) is a whole section of the business again.

There's a lot of BS around it as well. You don't actually have to that technically clued-up to get reasonable results. It's as much about legwork in thinking about how people look for things and why they might be looking. I managed to get a (somewhat specialist) site up from nowhere to first page on Google with just a few sensible tweaks to the content. (Not on adwords, just content)

There are lots of companies doing both SEM and SEO, most of which carry out, as you rightly suggest, just the simple management of what the majority of individuals or companies could do themselves with a bit of time and effort. At this level it's fairly competitive since anyone with a week to kill can become a Google Adwords professional and then set up as an SEM "specialist". The value added skills such as web analytics are harder to develop and the market isnt quite so tough. We (www.onefour.co.uk) dont try and compete at the £100 a month SEM market as it's price sensitive and margins v's effort are low, but there is scope for growth in the analytics sector. Most of our customers find that if they run ppc campaigns on search and content networks, the search results yield in the region of 400% better results in terms of hits to enquiry conversion and normally switch the content side of the functionality off.