Is Bing Gaining Momentum?
Many of you are having issues with Google Adwords, so I am going to start off by stating the obvious:
“Google Adwords is frustrating the hell out of a lot of people”.
Reports on the web indicate that well over 100,000 Adwords accounts have been suspended, many for unethical activity that was taking place. However, many accounts were deleted though they were following the Adwords guidelines. Google does have the upper hand in any situation and within their “terms 
of agreement” they state that they can basically remove any account they like.
Over the years Google has held a stronghold in the search market with close to 72% of the search market share.
Then came along Bing in 2009. MSN Search was becoming very difficult to brand for Microsoft as a search engine and it simply was not at the cutting edge of search technology. They had to do something…so they started off by a new name and new look (which I happen to find very appealing).
Bing also ramped up their search engine development team, coming up with some great new ideas, some of which Google was caught “copying”. This could be because the Google user satisfaction surveys produced horrible results which sent Google back-peddling and seeking out the reasons why other Search Engines were able to penetrate their audience.
Sure, Google owns Android, but the core of their business is search, and 95% of all the money they make is from search. If the people using their search aren’t happy, then they go elsewhere. If users go elsewhere, they have less traffic to monetize via their search, less brand integrity, and lowered brand awareness.
The biggest hit so far has been to “affiliate marketers”. If you are reading this, chances are you are an affiliate or at least know about affiliate marketing. Google Adwords has really clamped down on people that are promoting products that they don’t own…
But why smack around your top advertisers (affiliates)?
I have my personal views on this, but I do think that there is two sides to this story. Many affiliates out there have been promoting “scam” related products/services in Google Adwords for too long.
What has been happening is that the people that have been subject to these sort of offers and have been ripped off have contacted Google personally, complaining that they were ripped off by the search engine. Some of the most famous scams are the “Get paid to write Google Ads” and “Acai Berry” trial offers. There are also others, but these are the most prominent.
Yes, I do agree with giving these advertisers the boot and I do think this should have been done much earlier.
However, what Google has done is bundle entire industries and sets of advertisers into groups. In many cases they assume if you are promoting a money related to “making more money” or “losing weight” or Clickbank products that you are a scam.
We all know that there are legitimate products and services out there within these niches…but advertisers are being suspending simply for trying to start campaigns within them. I know many people that this has happened to, I have seen a lack of support from Google. In essence, a lack of explanation that leaves the suspended advertiser standing around “wondering” what the heck they did wrong.
I hear a lot of “why me” and “what did I do”…and if you have found yourself frustrated and in this position, you are not alone. Google is shutting people down for no reason (well, their reason is that they don’t need a reason).
Think of it this way. If a supermarket were to find out that one brand of pizza was making people sick, they would remove that pizza from their supermarket right. Fair enough.
However, if they followed what Google has done, they would remove all pizzas from their supermarket and maybe even the ingredients that go into the pizza, not giving their customers the ability to buy pizza anymore. Does this sound logical? You can come to your own conclusion…
Have you looked at the Google results lately?
Where have all the ads gone. What happened. Are people no longer advertising in Google? Trust me, they are trying. Search terms that once had 40-50 advertisers under them now have less than 5…and in many cases ZERO.
This is really unbelievable and although it is presenting a lot of frustration to advertisers that have been slapped, it is also creating a brand new opportunity. We are currently implementing some strategies that have proven successful with Google’s new changes…and have floundered with some techniques that didn’t work (although were 100% ethical).
One thing we do know, this has to be costing Google a lot of money. Like any good business though, their have a long term vision. They will sacrifice money now if it will mean longer term success in the future…and with the renewed competition (Bing/Yahoo), they have become a bit more serious about retaining their once invincible market share.
So here we are in mid 2010. Things are starting to change. Bing has gone from a 9% to almost a 13% market share. Bing and YSM are sharing technology and joining forces…they are becoming a QUARTER MARKET SHARE entity.
Big things are happening and there are big shifts that will be altering the way we market through 2010/2011.
What I think might happen?
I fully believe Google is going to continue losing market share. You see, when advertisers, affiliates, and Internet marketers get frustrated and pissy, it can cause a ripple effect in not only how they advertise, but what search engines they will use.
I mean, if Google without reason takes you out of their advertising platform, why should you continue earning them revenue by using their search. Why not perform your own searches within an engine like Bing or Yahoo…which produces equivalence in quality.
Then I think Google is going to realize that their advertisers were an integral component of their business model and will start becoming more flexible on their advertising rules and regulations. They aren’t going to allow illegal activity or the promotion of unethical products/services, however they may not be so quick to pull the “suspend” trigger on high quality accounts.
When marketing companies start creating their marketing agendas, talking about alternatives to Google, and start using different search engines themselves, it is going to have an outright negative effect on Google’s market share. They are going to lose a bunch of it and I can honestly see that Yahoo/Bing combo taking close to 40% of the overall searches in North America within the next year.
Many Alternatives to Google are opening up…
Many companies and marketers are already starting to move a large component of their advertising budgets outside of adwords. Many large websites are moving to their own advertising platforms (that is, run their ad placement technology in house) and there are social networks like FaceBook that are really starting to understand and deliver great advertising solutions.
Not to mention the Bing/Yahoo merger, which undoubtedly will have an impact on paid search.
And finally, for those “customer centric” folks, I ran a test?
I sent a question to the Bing advertising team this week just to see what sort of response I would get. People are getting used to “canned” answers, no explanation, and in many cases rude responses within Google, so I wanted to see how the support was elsewhere.
Bing sent me a personal 12 paragraph response from a personal rep in a brand spankin’ new account. I do have another account that has been around for some time, but I just wanted to run a test on a newbie account to see how they would act.
Someone took 30 minutes out of their day to respond to me. Now that is how you treat an advertiser…or a client who runs your business.
We grew our business at WAU by actually responding to people and putting our clients first, so I fully understand and believe in the personal interaction model.
I am not picking a winner in the search world right now now, but we all know who the leader is now and exactly what they have to lose if they continue making radical decisions. I could be way off in even saying “radical”, but in my honest opinion and from some of the feedback i have received, a big shift is about to take place in the paid search world.
Let me know what your thoughts are…leave me a comment, rant, suggestion, or question below.
Kyle
Wealthy Affiliate Co-Owner
www.wealthyaffiliate.com
PS. My ultimate decision. I have switched my daily searches to Bing for the time being.
@ David Schmidt
I remember the good ol’ bid for placement Overture days. Bid ONE PENNY MORE than the next competitor and you get a better ranking. With Bing and Yahoo making a presence again, I could see a bit of a change in tides, but I am not sure how long the momentum will remain. Only time will tell. Overture used to be the king of search, Google slowly took over, now what…
Who will be the king of the paid search in 2012? Will it be Google? YSM/BING? FaceBook? Something Else?
Thanks for your feedback.
Kyle
@ Jarret
Yeah, that is a good point about the new Google Instant. As you are typing, I wonder if it is calculating every impression for the paid ads that get shown for each word, or only the final search. If it shows each, broad terms are going to get “hammered” in the CTR department.
Cheers,
Kyle
Hi Kyle,
I beleive google thinks they have to set some sort of standard in the internet world as a self proclaimed king, and taking it out on thier bread and butter dosent make much sense.
Maybee if they lose a large percentage of searches things will change, hard to beleive but it could happen.
Only the future (and google) will reveal what lies ahead, maybee someday they will lift the ban on advertisers that didn’t deserve the ban.
I wonder if google even cares about how affiliates feel. There customer support really sucks compared to yahoo and bing, and it seems they could care less. Maybe it is because they now own youtube, admob, and tried to purchase facebook for about a billion dollars, but was turned down recently. I suspect they will try again soon. With so many avenues of revenue coming in, maybe they really dont care about losing the percentage from affiliates….but I am hoping that this is not the case and that they are just making a clean sweep of bad affiliates to make way for a new group. Time will tell, but for now, it is starting to look bleek when it comes to google and affiliates. Makes you scratch your head and wonder why they would treat so many good affiliates bad also….seems cold….I know first hand….an account terminated with no explanation or reason to this day…….the future is going to be interesting.
I am also one of those newbie marketers that was banned from Google, without explanation.
I did everything I could think of to try and kiss Googles ASS but I didn’t even know why I was
kissing their asses cause they wouldn’t even give me a reason why they shut down my account down.
To this I say PISS on Google!!!
I am going to stick with Bing.
I got my Google Adwords account banned last year for no reason Re Google T + C.
I have mainly been concentrating on free advertising methods twitter , you tube,Facebook Etc But might give Bing a try after reading your posts.
For the past year I have known that these changes would soon come! Just wait til you tube makes their shift. Just remember whenever their is a crisis of any sort! People get rich! I have studied SEO for the past five years and have gained a massive following for helping small Biz. Aside from freaking out! I believe that people should take the time to learn what their options are and also learn new skills! I will list a single product campaign method that I would use here!
Lets start with the basics~
1)code a website in pure old school html with css for the appearance. Or use wordpress if you cant code.
2)Use htags on the darn website. Match it to your title keywords,description and at least 500 words per page with alternate keyword. Change the keywords around for everypage as well as content.
3)Use a mixture of google,yahoo,bing, and facebook ads.
* I only use these ads to get some instant traffic going until my websites rank! yes websites! I will build at least 10 to target just one niche!
4)Learn the basics of ad copy writing ~ Create how to’s How to anything! People still read these all the time~ Instant free traffic.
5)Use paid service like se nuke to distribute content. I launch about 500 blogs and articles per week when taking over a market. I do this for different websites in the same niche so that it appears to be some what natural.
6) Ezines,blogger,hubpages,squidoo and a articles are great choices always. Chain link all of those puppies together and point them to the inner pages of your website! Not just the main .com index home page! But articles for all pages!
7)Run some old fashion cl ads and trick people into comming to your site! Once again a how to of iinformation versus straight up selling.
8)I will now give the seo magic that everyone wants to know! Pick 2 primary keywords. Write down phrases that people really will search for like ~ How to build a chicken coop! How to blow all of your money on internet marketing! LOL
9) Find areas on google that are under 10million preferably 5million in competition or less!
10) h1 tag plus h2-h6 title tags on every website and every article!!!!
11) take over small local business markets like dog grooming if you are selling products on how to train your dog or affiliate commissions for products like amazon!
12)video,video,video!
So another words! Dont freak out! Still for the moment everyone and their dog still types GOOGLE.COM or at least for the moment! I have one niche website that gets over 75k visitors per month and another with over 500,000. All without Google paid ads!
DO the stuff above, learn some new skills,
i am also a newbie as well but at the moment not sure what too use see if theirs a new search engine that we might be able too develop our slaves
I’ve moved more and more towards Bing. The Firefox default is no longer set to Google.
One more thing, notice if you type a search term slowly in google now, it uses ajax and pops NEW ADS on EACH LETTER. Talk about destroying your CTR.
I can actually remember the day that Overture was the big dog on the block and when google adwords came out I thought I would give it a shot. Couldn’t hurt right? Well it hurt and it hurt bad. I saw $4000.00 go bye bye in the matter of 2 days. Obviously I thought I knew how to use it but well obviously not and this was using googles team to help me with my keywords.
I really only see google being good for organic reasons and adwords I don’t even bother with anymore. You can really get better targeted results with youtube and facebook now.
“But why smack around your top advertisers (affiliates)?”
Easy, its SPAM, its JUNK, and nobody wants it. We have to face the TRUTH in what we do. We deserve the smackdows we get.
Great article!
I am a newbie and I was promoting some products in the make money niche, but suddenly I was banned for life by Google without any explanation.
At this moment I feel so frustrated but with the hopefulness that BING and YAHOO will be the alternative.
Thanks a lot!
Roberto Carolini
Bolivia country
Hi Kyle,
Thanks for posting this blog. Very nice to know I wasnt the only one google slapped! After I got slapped that was one of the reasons I left affiliate marketing. cause I feel google seems to forget who makes them profit. I also found that alot of companies out there are forgetting that too! I was a member of WA and truly feel you have a great program there.
Thanks
Todd
@ kevin
I fully agree there is no way to incorporate a “one size fits all” algorithm into search. It becomes much easier to game and it also weeds out some quality sites that don’t necessarily fit the typical criteria. We will definitely consider having more open discussion like this in the future on our blog. Thanks for your feedback.
Cheers,
Kyle
Good open discussion article about future trends. Like to see more . Good to hear Yahoo is working for some folks, as it offers alternatives. Google just sounds too unpredictable and unreliable and treats their customers badly, arrogantly.
Google has responsibility in this too . because their spiders and algorithms still cant really tell what is a quality site and what is not. Thats why they they keep changing and experimenting.
The other thing i don’t like is that Google is trying to dictate the model on how how all sites should be, but ” one size fits all ” is not possible. There are different types of sights for different purposes.
Hi Kyle,
Firefox and Bing definitely would be a good move.
I must admit the results I have been getting lately in Google have been a bit weird even with using their Adwords Tool, they just don’t seem to tally up when compared with Bing.
I run Ads on FaceBook and they have been working very well.
Overall I think it’s about time Google got a kick in the pants, they have had it all their own way for far too long.
Cheers
Neil
Hi Guys, some interesting stuff, one question here no one has covered and is core to the topic at the table / affiliate marketing @ SEM
Regardless of SEM provider / from big to small you will see them all sooner or later take the big G’s lead in cleaning up the crap, to not do so will lead to junk that can not be sold.
With that in mind and what everybody has not addressed is a total reversal of thinking and game play is now needed to operate as a affiliate / SEM marketer for this very reason
Up until now over the last year or so i have many affiliates go down to the large SEM providers like lambs to the slaughter for accounts that do not meet the SEM guidelines.
What nobody has mentioned to date is that the affiliate networks, the vendors of klickbank type type products, these sites that run those products and offers such as CPA and all variants that have been run on SEM by affiliates have all hidden in the background.
All of these companies know what is happening and they are letting it happen as they know for as many lambs ( affiliates ) they send in for the slaughter new lambs will be born, they do not care.
But here is the thing, as an affiliate once you decide to promote any form of product as above via SEM, you are then left open to having your account suspended by the provider / vendor and all in between and you as the affiliate are helpless to stop this in its current form.
These people / the CB type owners / the vendors and the SEM operators themselves are all left standing while affiliates fall.
But as the affiliate promoting this you are open to any number of wild bill outcomes, for example if you study a clickbank product and deem it to meet all SEM terms and then run a campaign on that product, regardless of what it is, then what can happen is the vendor can come along and opt to split test the site, they may bring in the gun new word smith and change the words, they may even just change the alt text on an image or any number of things
What happens then is the affiliate is now running a campaign that does not meet terms of that SEM and as such there can and is mass suspensions on those accounts and those affiliates are wiped out.
The vendors / site owners and Seams keep earning bucks at the disposable face of new sheep to promote their products
affiliate networks wash their hands of anything and have blank rabbit eye stares, same with every other facet
With these new SEM rules now sees a shift in the way any affiliate working with SEM must operate
First these affiliate operators and vendors must provide all affiliates with a duty of care, they should provide a simple code to say if a product or service is SEM approved, and what of the 3 SEMs it will work on, second, they must provide information as to if it can be direct linked or not or a land site can be built, and third they must provide a opt in email service for those who want to use it.
this way all vendors and operators would then be able to advise affiliates say two weeks in advance of any pending changes and the affiliate then can choose to continue to operate or cease that campaign
as an affiliate working any other way leaves you vulnerable at best to any vendor, and any changes they make
Call me potty if you will but the short of it is this, as a SEM affiliate operator you drive traffic, these new rules now mean more than ever that whole part of your business can be wiped out through no fault of your own
to protect yourself moving forward there needs to be an SEMDOC search engine marketing duty of care
from a personal level i will now not promote any affiliate level of any product unless i get an assurance from that vendor that no changes will be made to a site unless i am advised first,
Failing that my whole focus will now move to buying in plr or other material and creating my own products to sell and i think every affiliate were to stop trading affiliate sales / SEM then it would only take weeks before these people now who hide in the background taking affiliates to the bloody death of SEM suspension and washing their hands of any wrong doing will be forced to introduce a SEMDOC as part of any affiliate component of any creative group.
A few years back when Microsoft bashing was all the rage, we used to applaud the likes of Google for eating into Microsoft’s dominance (e.g. Google Docs). How infatuated we were!
Whilst you have to admire what Google have achieved, to a lot of marketers, their market share is actually damaging them now as they become more monopolistic in their behaviour. So long as you expect the status quo to change (yeah, I know that’s an oxymoron) you can live with it. Just remember MFA sites, they were never going to last but they were fun whilst they did.
Moving on. [sic] Cecil (Dick van Dyke) in Night at the Museum
Great Post
I’ve been advertising with Yahoo! for some time now and have been completely happy with the results I’ve obtained. Their response time to any emails I’ve sent has been, at best, within the hour and, at worst, 14 hours. Their responses have always completely answered my problem and in most cases have added information to help me.
Forever Yahoo!
Cheers
Olita
Thanks kyle for this very informative article.
I was one of the victims of this what they call “google slap.” Many of my profitable campaigns were deleted by google. i switched to facebook and POF ads lately. but seems i’m starting to lose my pants. thinking now to try yahoo and bing.
regards
jamson magnetico
@ Jennifer
Yeah Jennifer, good point on the Firefox agreement. I bet you Bing is going to work very hard to get that contract…perhaps buying ownership into FF before the contract comes up like they did with Facebook (I believe they purchased a 5% share in FB).
And as for Yahoo, we haven’t heard a ton out of the Yahoo factory lately, but you can guarantee their search gears are turning as well. A year from now, I think things will look different in the search engine world. In two years, things will look VERY different!
Cheers,
Kyle
@ Ryan
I fully agree with you Ryan. Google is trimming the fat along with a lot of the muscle just to get rid of the fat that is dragging down their search quality. If Bing/Yahoo run into the same thing going forward, they are going to get a lot of complaints and have to take strong action like Google has done, but probably two years down the road. If Bing/Yahoo do things right and prevent the activity that Google has tried to weed out (the fat) from the get-go, I think there will be a market share shift. If not, there will still be a market share shift but they will come face to face with this situation in the future.
Thanks for the comment.
Kyle
@ Russ
I can only imagine how many half million advertising dollar affiliates Google has chopped off…many (actually most of them) who were really doing nothing wrong. I think the terminology they have used doesn’t really help either. “Suspended” in school means you have done something really bad…advertisers that get “suspended” in Google have the notion they have done something wrong. Kind of a bad taste.
Kyle
@ Thomas
Yeah, I am not sure why Adsense doesn’t pay out…it is supposed to be a 60% share that goes to the publisher (you). Recent tests I have done on the Adsense network actually are quite different from your results as I have noticed some content advertisers are paying several dollars per click, and I was getting well over $1 per click. This is obviously only in certain niches, but I guess there is still some opportunity in Adsense although Carson and I have never been advocates of selling your traffic…in particular if it is relevant.
Content is king and people looking to provide relevant content may still get ousted by Google. That is the disparity that I think may alter a portion of the market share. We will see…
Cheers,
Kyle
@ John
Bing and Yahoo training is coming…however, it cannot be done until the merger takes place as we believe there will some interface changes as they are going to one single login (they are utilizing the current Adcenter platform). So yeah, we offer support and do have some inline training that will work on any paid platform. Really, the advertising model doesn’t change from interface to interface, more just the technical and “process” stuff does.
We hope to have you back at Wealthy Affiliate and can definitely help you with any Adwords/YSM campaigns…and of course Google Adwords for that matter.
Cheers,
Kyle
@ Troy
In many ways I do wholeheartedly agree with you. In order to weed out the “scammers” you sometimes have to make a much larger and more efficient stand. That appears to be what Google is doing now. This does come with some potential adverse affects though…people moving over to the other search (which I have to say is pretty good). It can have positive effects as well though. I know that people that get scammed after a search in Google actually contact Google thinking it was Google that scammed them. Really, I think the number of people that have been scammed out there versus the number of people that have been negatively effected by their “shake up”, is much lower…thus the reach of the advertisers and their social reaction to these seemingly unfair shifts in the market, may gain SE like bing and yahoo more market share.
Thanks for your comment.
Kyle
@ Gordon
Yeah, that is exactly what might happen. Treat some of your top clients (not to mention their massive reach…I know how big our list is and I know there are many other big “lists” out there) poorly, and people start to make a collective action towards change. I do believe Google offers a ton of great services, but I also see the “other side” arguments where they have too much control now because of the services that they offer (and the sheer numbers of users they have). You may be on to something with your Amazon/Ebay comparison…
Kyle
@ Ernest Zak
Bing training at Wealthy Affiliate is on it’s way (actually Bing/YSM as they have now merged). Also we will be continue to follow the trends within the Google Adwords world at WAU, so you can look forward to that as well.
Kyle
Type “google and nsa” into your favorite browser.
@ Steve J Gerwig
I agree. The hammer in one search engines hands is never good and solid competition will always become a good thing for advertisers and search engine equality. There are many parties involved in search engine marketing and in order to give everyone a fair medium to advertise, there has to be more than one company that competes for our ad dollars. Thanks for the feedback.
Cheers,
Kyle
I too had my google adwords account suspended for promoting clickbank products and I teach at an educational establishment,at which I have access to the computers,I switched every one of them to Yahoo search bars instead of google so there! Noone has said anything and just uses yahoo search as before ads and all and I have switched my own personal ads to yahoo also. On your recommendation I will look at Bing too
One can only hope that you are correct.
In every free market there needs to be healthy and close competition to keep all players in line. Google has had the hammer for far too long.
I look forward too the day that we as Internet marketers have a choice between viable search engines to run our ads on, that really appreciate us instead of looking on us as bugs to be squashed.
Steve G.
The obvious conclusion but not one that many would recognize is that it isn’t about the money. Google’s monopoly on search – both organic and ppc – is dangerous to us all. Google traffic is responsible for 60-90% of all direct referrals to most ecommerce businesses and affiliate sites today. If you count all the people who find their way to your site through another site that linked to you that they also found on Google you should realize that they have almost all the traffic.
Most businesses can not survive a drop of 60-90% of their traffic. In one day in May Google’s MayDay Update dropped traffic to many Yahoo! store type sites by 20-30%. That can easily be seen for yourself by looking up random stores at siteanalytics.Compete.com.
Google gave away Google Analytics so now they know what keyword phrases convert and those are the ones they will make expensive in AdWords and focus on handing to the Big Brands instead of small online and local busineses in organic search.
Maybe their evilness may finally catch up with them so the media (hint: who owns the media) will stop mentioning Googling on every show, movie and even the evening news and switch to promoting Bing instead just as they once promoted Yahoo.
For another example, remember when MySpace was all the rage in the media, and then Facebook and now Twitter? I hope some are starting to see the pattern here. Publicly traded companies could be controlled by the same people that control the media.
If we want to stop destroying our economy we need to focus on INDEPENDENT solutions. Get behind promoting true alternatives on your blogs and on Social Networks and to your friends and family. Consider DuckDuckGo or any number of others.
I am NOT saying that businesses should not use Google or AdWords – you almost have to because they have a virtual monopoly. What I AM saying is you can NOT trust them and your trafffic is likely to continue to decline from that source because their CEO has publicly stated their intentions in the now-famous Internet Cesspool comment that favoring big brands is the solution.
Has anyone considered that maybe they shut affiliates down in AdWords to get you moved over to advertising on Bing before the media starts promoting Bing heavily? The only reason AdWords had almost all of the ppc market was that Yahoo intentionally trashed their excellent system and Microsoft’s original entry was so terrible that I actually heard major SEM reps tell their best clients that if they wanted to advertise there they would have to do it themselves.
I once did ppc exclusively and my plan was to open a Microsoft for every single ppc client I had. It was so awful I tried a couple and threw in the towel. Then Yahoo moved to their new system and trashed the accounts they migrated so badly that it was faster to start over than try to fix them. Could both of those companies possibly be THAT incompetent? Don’t they have the resources to hire the best if they so desire? When I felt I could no longer protect my clients from the ppc games that skim their money and send them worthless traffic I got out of ppc management.
What we need is to lead in another direction. First step: quit using “free” analytics and telling them exactly where to hit you hardest. Use these companies on your own terms but work towards promoting and developing alternatives. There is an independent Social Network to be launched later this year that I believe could be our solution. We will start alpha testing it soon.
This is yet another clear cut case of corporate hubris. Google also blacklisted my website for no good reason either. The real ‘keyword’ here is: DIVERSIFY. Hopefully WAU will offer training on Bing advertising and other search engines as well. Thanks for the heads up !
Hi Kyle, this reminds me of the way Ebay has been treating their affiliates. As they steadily remove affiliates they go and promote Amazon products instead and then Ebay wonders why Amazon manages to get more market share? Google and Ebay need to realise that lots of little affiliates still add up to lots of traffic and that they are bette off retaining it than losing it to the competiton.
So the scammers move to Yahoo and Bing, people will get pissed, and here we go again. Google is cleaning itself up, even if it costs them money they could be making. No doubt they took “shoot them all and let the market sort it out” approach, but I guess it is just more efficient that way.
I personally don’t like Bing, the results often seem rather irrelevant, Yahoo’s OK,
I ran PPC test on all three. When it comes to cost vs result ratio, Yahoo won Google was second and Bing just sucked. However, the Bing and Yahoo ad platform merger sure may shake up the PPC industry. We just have to wait and see.
Thanks very much Kyle, this was very informative and is valuable information for someone just starting out in IM.
I opened up a new account with adcentre/Bing about three months ago. Had 2 support reps answer questions and support me on different things…with a response time no longer than 24 hours. All I can say is what a great way to run a business. They care about their clients.
Hey Kyle,
First off, thanks for keeping us abreast of what’s going on with Google and your insights. You couldn’t have sent this to us at a better time. I’ve been trying to get a couple of serious questions straight, but, according to your assistant Cara, I’d have to re-instate my WA Membership with you guys in order to get the questions answered.
Then why is there a contact link for questions on the beating adwords sales letter page? Anyway, I’m not sweating the small stuff and Cara was cool enough to let me know that I can re-instate my WA Membership instead of enrolling brand new…that’s a good deal.
So, back to the business at hand, I’ve been stressed out about, number one, biting the bullet with paid search strategies, and two, which one? Google Adwords, Bing, Yahoo, or where everyone seems to be running for cover…Facebook PPC. And three, who do I study (model) under? I believe number three is the most important.
It’s been over two years since I’ve been a WA Member…my bad! So, lately I ran across the beating adwords sales page, you’ve probably noticed my opt-ins to this and that lately, and I started researching all your stuff upside down and inside out. I came to the conclusion that you guys,w/o question or doubt, are the ones to model after regarding paid search or any search for that matter.
So how low of a daily budget can I have and still have my ads displayed? I got a bullshit answer from a so called Adwords expert that you can invest zero dollars and Google will still display the ads. He and his partner must not need my $1,997.00 for their course on all paid searches that they just launched (I’m sure you know who I’m talking about).
I see that WLM and BA are all under one roof now so I’m definitely re-instating very soon…that’s uber killer! I hope your eyes aren’t rolling Kyle, but, I’d really appreciate your help with this. Since you’re focusing on Bing now, is that where I should start for now? Do you have adequate Bing training? Or is it in the works? What’s your take on Facebook PPC? Where everyone seems to be going because of supposed easy set up and lower ctr.
I just can’t afford to waste anymore time and money! Although, thanks to you and Carson, it’s a sigh of relief that I can learn the low to no cost methods with your other courses and then leverage my way into the paid search arena. Please advise.
Cheers,
JC
I agree with most your theory. I have a few pages that rank anywhere in the top 5 pages on Google. It seems the more content I offer for free the less money I’m making. And you are right, where are all those ads on Google search engine?.What I don’t understand, how come I only get as little as 2 cents for a AdSense advertisement when people including myself has to pay as much as $2+ for the same ad. It does’nt figure. Also, it doesn’t matter what traffic for the month is I always get the same or almost the same pay cheque. May it’s time for Google to look at the way they are dealing with advertisers. I believe we are also their customers. I don’t believe for one second that Google will be as successful without websites that provides good content.
My account is not yet affected ,but Google holds a monopoly for a long time.
It is really amazing and it’s very bad when a large fish wants to many eat .
It’s like National Geographic:)
I use Bing most of the time and get the same results as if I was using Google.
With all those horror stories that I hear about Google it only makes sense to avoid them for a while.
I do appreciate your article stating all the statistics and making it clear that Yahoo and Bing are teaming up and that means good news for us.
I say, Google who?
Thank You – good article on the Google vs. Bing/Yahoo situation.
I could not agree with you more. Google right now is getting alot of bad press – and the way they treat their customers is absolutely pathetic. I have spent over a 1/2 million dollars with that company, and they have never ever reached out to me.
The funny thing is the affiliate movement was a big part of Google’s growth. And if Bing/Yahoo has great customer service, they will certainly gain in market share. Google Adwords is ripe for an overtaking.
I believe Google will lessen their stance a little when they start seeing their market share drop…
Couldn’t resist sharing my story when I saw your subject line!
I was google slapped and moved all my PPC advertising to Yahoo and then some to Bing. Couldn’t be happier! …and thrilled about the merger. Makes life easier.
Soon after I started my first campaign with Bing, I got a phone call from a Bing rep who asked permission to tweak my campaign. Can you imagine?I hadn’t taken as much time to learn the new platform as I should have. He added a few keywords and tweaks and improved my effectiveness measureably! He also suggested I call back anytime and they would be happy to look at my campaigns. How cool is that? I couldn’t stop thanking him after the way I’d been treated by google …wow.
Google has some competition in an area they can’t even begin to compete with right now. Should be interesting to see what happens. Either way it is good for all of us who are growing an online biz!
Christy
Kyle,
I was nodding in agreement as I read your post. I’ve been keeping an eye on the whole Bing/Yahoo thing and I do think this is something we should all be paying attention to.
Now, I’ll admit that I look at all this from an organic perspective and not as much a PPC perspective (I’m an organic kinda gal….lol), but from BOTH perspectives, this could turn out to be quite interesting as time passes.
First off, the Bing and Yahoo results are the SAME now (for US and Canada at this point) – both search engines are using Bing’s search results. Power of two to over-take one…. not a bad start.
Secondly, the FaceBook search tool is fed by Bing. Anyone heard of that little site called FaceBook (haha)
Third, from my understanding, the search option in FireFox is currently powered by Google, BUT their contract is up some time next year. Ya think Bing will make a run for that? I sure do.
Then there’s the Windows Phone 7 or whatever it’s called… could be big stuff for Bing, too.
I’m really interested in seeing how all this plays out. Yet another cool time to be involved in internet marketing, that’s for sure!
Great post, thank you!
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
You know I think its funny how we are looking at Google now
A few years ago anybody could put up a crap site with adsense and make a crap load of money
but to be really honest those sites had little or no value.
It was a welcome blessing to legitimate online businesses to see Googles first round
of slaps it cleaned up the crap!
Now as you mentioned Google is going after the affiliate marketers.
Although the ones they are trying to eliminate are the unscrupulous scum that rip people off –
this is a good thing people.
Now unfortunately with the masive sweep some legitimate campaigns and promotions
will be initially wiped out this is an unfortunate part of the process.
Given time I believe that Google will figure out a better method and fine tuning it to eliminate the undesirables and be there for the legitimate marketer that is genuinely trying to provide
service to people that are looking for help. -which is what its all about no?
I have had campaigns halted or slapped but I have not had my account suspended I think that’s because when I see that Google has paused my account I either tweak it accordingly if I can or I just
move on why fight something you cannot win?
Google is on a mission to clean up the internet and is willing to have collateral damage in the process I tip my hat of to them, although in agreement to your comment Kyle I wish that their
customer support was a little better but truthfully I have not had a problem they just do not answer the question they send you to where you can find the answer so maybe their arrogance lies in the fact that the information you require is within there learning center?
Regardless what is happening and what will happen in the future there are at least options which you can choose to use or just wait it out and see what happens.
I have a funny feeling we might be talking about the same thing with Bing and Yahoo in the next few years – lets hope not
Google swear they’re kings of the Internet and I keep hearing horror stories about people having their accounts suspended and all. They should lose lots of market share due to their egotistic ways of being invincible and even did a backroom deal with Verizon about becoming gatekeepers on the Internet and charging more money for access.
Google should just pack up and move on. They deserve to go bankrupt.
I use Bing for search now too — ever since they shut down my Adwords account for no reason. At first, it was for revenge, but now I like the results better. Suck it Google…