Since 2004, the number of queries with 8-words has risen 34,000%, from making up just 5.64% of total searches to 8.68% of searches in 2009.

The numbers also show a drop in 2- and 3-word searches, with users starting to use more specific terms or, on the alternative, just 1 word, which also saw a rise in use. 1-word searches are probably a result of brand searches.

Here’s the table with the percentages, courtesy of MarketingPilgrim.com:

1-word searches = 20.29% (19.02%)

2-word searches = 23.65% (32.58%)

3-word searches = 21.92% (25.61%)

4-word searches = 14.89% (12.83%)

5-word searches = 8.68% (5.64%)

6-word searches = 4.65% (2.32%)

7-word searches = 2.49% (0.98%)

8-word searches = 3.43% (no one did 8-word searches in 2004!)

The industry giant has rolled out a new integrated ad network to help limit the confusion advertisers deal with.

All of its acquired or constructed brands and networks have been piling up, inlcuding Drive PM, Massive, MSN and other partner sites like Facebook, have until now been invoicing separately, and the network as a whole has lacked a truly consolidate approach to selling across the multiple networls.

“There needs to be a single quarterback,” said Scott Howe, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, advertiser and publisher solutions. “Our belief has always been the best results for advertisers will be when they have the ability to buy real granular segments but at massive scale.” He said the integrated offering will make it easier to do that.

“By having our salespeople use a common CRM system, often times going out together in pitches, we’re starting to tap into some of those opportunities,” said Howe. “It’s particularly true for major agencies, major publishers who might be looking for a full soup-to-nuts solution.”

The new plan is no surprise to long time advertisers, as they’ve already been advised of the much needed upgrade.

via Clickz

Yahoo! has been running trials for rich media ads in paid search listings.

The program is only available to a small number of advertisers and seen by a small number of searchers. These ads contain video, images or a custom search box, and apparently the results are promising.

Advertisers testing the rich media ads saw a bump as high as 25% in click-through rates in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Read more

Yahoo! has announced it will be launching a new mobile experience called Yahoo! Mobile. The name may not be all that catchy or original, but it is an interesting and much needed area of services that will now be tackled by big purple.

Yahoo! Mobile will be de available to users via mobile web and downloadable applications for the iPhone and other smartphones like Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and others.

Yahoo! Mobile features are said to include:

• Yahoo! oneSearch - Yahoo!’s award-winning mobile search service providing the most current, relevant answers you need.
• Today - The most interesting stories buzzing on the Internet right now, selected by Yahoo!’s editorial team.
• Yahoo! oneConnect - Yahoo!’s service designed to provide consumers everything they need to stay in touch with the people about whom they care:
  • Email - Access to Yahoo! Mail and other popular email service providers, including Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and AOL Mail.
  • Pulse - Access totheir social networks, including Bebo, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Last.fm, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
  • Yahoo! Messenger - An upgraded version of Yahoo!’s popular mobile instant messaging service.
  • Yahoo! Address Book - Keeps consumers’ contacts always handy and in sync.
  • Yahoo! Calendar - View, add and edit appointments when users are away from their PCs.
• Yahoo! News - Breaking headlines across popular topics.

Yahoo! onePlace - Access and manage your favorite content, all from one location including news topics and sources, RSS feeds, weather conditions, sports scores, stock quotes, websites/blogs, horoscopes and movie theaters.

Via SearchEngineWatch

According to Danny Sullivan, Google needs to be more transparent with publishers who share revenue and advertisers who buy search ads.

Mr Sullivan argued his point at the Searck Marketing Expo in Santa Clara, California, saying Google would gain more trust if they would be more transparent with marketers.

“Show real-time cost per click for ads,” he said. “It might help people have more trust for them.”

“It seems only fair to tell them how much money you’re keeping,” he said. If Google shared the information, “The people supplying the content that supports Google would better know their value.”

My Sullivan did stress, however, that Google has done a pretty good job and been successful in following the principle of providing best results for its users.

Read more at CNet.

Running a PPC campaign, or even an article writing or press release campaign, will underperform if you’re not using landing pages.

For PPC campaigns and search marketing campaigns, custom landing pages can boost your conversion rates by percentage points beyond a static one.

With a few snippets of Javascript or other dynamic languages, your landing pages can snag what search terms or website sent them to the page, then dynamically customize itself to that particular customer.

This means the images, copy and even design of the landing page can speak specifically to what your potential customer came there looking for. Clearer communication and catering to answering the questions of your inbound traffic means more sales.

You can get more information about customized landing pages and just one of many ways to implement the code at DMnews.com.

Good web analytics data can often lead to bad keyword decisions.

For example, when a customer visits your website after clicking a PPC ad they might just call your 800 number and order via the phone. Web analytics are blind to these conversions. As a result, bad keywords could be chosen and lead to a bloated Cost Per Acquisition.

Brian Lewis gives an indepth look into these situations and how to avoid them at DMnews.

Search Marketing (SEM) tool provider WordSteam announced the release of a new online application used to enhance search campaigns.

“We offer a tool that simplifies and automates the manual, labor-intensive process of running effective paid search campaigns,” says Rob Adler, president and CEO of WordStream.

The applications main functions are to include ad copy creation, relevant keyword research and grouping and Web analytics.

“Google Analytics gives you a comprehensive look at all the search traffic that comes to your site,” said Adler. “We take that data and put it into a work bench that allows you to process and act on it to build better search campaigns.”

The application has been in beta testing since October.

AOL’s floundering value has prompted Google to demand its $1 billion investment back, or at least most it.

In 2005 the search giant invested the money, but nearly 4 years later and after a reduction from $10 billion to $5.5 billion AOL’s unit valuation, it wants out.

Google has already notified Time Warner, the parent company of AOL, of their plan to “demand registration rights”, forcing Time Warenr to buy back Google’s shares in AOL to the tune of $726 million. If they refuse, AOL will be forced to go public.

Google’s statment says:

“AOL remains an extremely valued partner, and we’ll continue to work closely together to provide their users with the best search experience possible. After careful consideration, we made the decision that we needed to exercise our rights now so we could be in a position to sell our interest when the timing made sense for us.”

A landing page is important for both search robots and human viewers. Are you landing pages working as well as they should be?

There are few metrics we can mesaure to get an idea if the landing pages we’re using are effectively fulfilling their mission.

Bounce Rates

You should be running a web stats program to monitor and analye your traffics. If you’re not, get Google Analytics, it’s free and pretty comprehensive.

In your traffic analysis you should be able to see your “Bounce Rate” for your site as a whole and for the specific landing page you’re analyzing. Are there differences? Are a large proportion of visitors hitting your landing page “bouncing” out to other sites without spending any time there? Get to work, your landing page isn’t relevant enough.

Scannable and Pretty

A landing page is meant to convey the information your promised the visitor before they clicked on your link in the search results. Does it? It better, because you’ll only have a few seconds to convince that visitor that you’re credible and worth their time to explore further.

Opinions are formed extremely fast and the first element is going to be basic graphic elements, layouts, colors, does the site “look” the part? If you’re selling party baloons but have a sophisticated, high-brow design, the customer is going to be confused. Likewise if it’s vice versa.

Once you’ve got the image down you need to make the text flow rapidly. Visitors are going to do a quick scan and you need to make sure their scanning eyes get caught on the important parts of your message. Then you can rope them in to read in more detail, maybe.

You can read more advice and pointers at this site.