Google banned 30,000 advertisers post Economic Resurrection
Ad police suddenly affordable
By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in Music and Media, 15th January 2010 21:40 GMT
In the fall of 2008, when the worldwide economy began to melt, Google responded by shamelessly expanding ad coverage on its web-dominating search engine, letting more ads onto more pages. But now that the economy has recovered, the web giant has suddenly become more much vigilant in its efforts to weed out what it considers low-quality advertising.
According to new data from AdGooRoo - a search marketing consultant that tracks search ads from a network of servers across the globe - Google permanently banned 30,000 accounts from its AdWords ad system at the beginning of December. That's roughly 5.3 per cent of its active advertisers. Ad coverage dipped nearly 10 per cent in the wake of the mass axing, and yet AdGooRoo's data indicates that Google's revenues surged in the fourth quarter, thanks to increased competition for placement among the web's top ad spenders.
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In other words, when the economy was in the tank, Google needed all the extra revenue it could get. But now that the economy is healthy again, it can step up efforts up to remove what it sees as inappropriate ads. The big boys are spending more, so it doesn't need as many clicks to boost the bottom line. What's more, by shrinking ad coverage, Google can actually drive more traffic to the big spenders. If you cut 30,000 advertisers, those still on the search engine get more clicks - and the more clicks, the more those big spenders pay.
Google announces its fourth quarter financials next week, and AdGooRoo data is typically a reliable indicator of what's to come. "Our ad coverage metric confirms that something big went down at the Googleplex last month. Ad coverage, which has been steadily climbing for the past 12 months took a sudden and precipitous dive in December," reads the firms latest search-ad report, due out on Monday. "Ordinarily, this would foreshadow a weak quarter, but we believe that this small drop will be more than offset by strong ad revenues."
Two years ago, in January 2008, Google famously began an effort to shrink ad coverage on the world's most popular search engine. This continued through the middle of 2008, and when the subject came up during Google's quarterly earnings call that July, senior vice president Jonathan Rosenberg attributed the shrinkage to Google's "continued focus on quality" advertising.
"[Google co-founder] Larry [Page] says we'd be better off showing just one ad [per page] - the perfect ad," Rosenberg said, indicating that coverage would continue to shrink.
But then he was interrupted by Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, who piped up with what can only be described as a shocking moment of candor. "There is some evidence that we've been a little bit more aggressive in decreasing coverage than we ought to have been," Brin said. "We've been reexamining some of that."
The economy was softening, and sure enough, coverage soon began to expand. According to AdGooRoo's numbers, Google's search engine showed 57 per cent more ads per page in the fourth quarter of 2008 than it did in Q3, as the economy imploded following the infamous demise of Wall Street stalwarts Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
Google had made significant changes to AdWords that fall, and naturally it said this would also improve ad "quality." So, whether Google is shrinking ad coverage or expanding it, the only aim to provide the world with better ads.
But surely it's obvious that Google is dialing up and down as the economy rises and falls. And now that the economy is on the rise again, the company has renewed efforts to crack down on ads it doesn't like. Google started banning advertisers en masse in early October - just as it was about to announce that the economic meltdown was over - and this house-cleaning came to head on December 3.
The official line is what you'd expect from the Mountain View Chocolate Factory. "Google is constantly working to ensure that we’re showing ads to our users that are relevant, in accordance with our ad policies, and safe for users. To that end, we perform regular reviews, using both manual and automated processes, in order to detect and disable ads that violate our policies," it told Search Engine Land.
But surely, the timing is no coincidence. ®
Friday, 15 January 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Challenging China
Chinese surprise at Google pull-out threat
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Shanghai
Google's warning that it might pull out of China over cyber attacks has surprised human rights activists here.
They seem unfazed that China is accused of trying to hack into their Gmail accounts. But a major foreign firm like Google being prepared to speak out and challenge the government so directly is unusual.
The Chinese authorities will be infuriated that Google has made its announcement before negotiations with officials have got under way.
China has so far said little publicly in response.
I would bet on a harsh reaction from the Chinese government
Dan Sefarty, Viadeo
An unnamed official quoted by the state news agency Xinhua said only that the authorities were trying to find out more about Google's suggestion it might leave the country.
The company's main Chinese rival Baidu is less reticent. In a blog post that has since been taken down, the firm's chief architect Sun Yunfeng claimed Google was just trying to play down its market failure.
"Would Google top executives still proclaim that they would 'do no evil'," he said, quoting the company's code of conduct, "and quit China if they had taken 80% of China's search market?"
Google's market share is estimated to be around 30% in China, about half the size of Baidu's, the search engine market leader.
The senior Baidu executive said the American company's move would "satisfy the imagination of those Westerners who have never been to China and understand nothing of China but still like to point fingers at China".
'Mismatch' in perception
Others in the technology sector here see this differently.
google.cn homepage ( archive image)
Gmail accounts of rights activists have reportedly been accessed
Dan Sefarty heads Viadeo, the firm that owns the Chinese social networking site Tianji.com.
"Google is rare," he says. "It's a US company succeeding in China. It has impressive market share and is atypical among other foreign companies who try to get into this very tough market."
He warns that Baidu has strong links with the government and may be lobbying hard to gain business advantage from this row.
"I would bet on a harsh reaction from the Chinese government," he says. "Look at what they have done with Facebook and Twitter, which have been blocked in China for six to nine months now."
Opinion is divided over whether or not Google really plans to withdraw from the country, the world's largest internet market.
Duncan Clark, an analyst at the Beijing hi-tech consultancy BDA, says he sees a "mismatch" in perception between the Chinese authorities and the foreign firms doing business here.
"People here think no-one can do without China, and I think now some companies are thinking no-one can deal with China," he told the French news agency AFP.
"There is a feeling that China is emboldened and that they don't need to have the same sort of dialogue [as before]," he said.
Google's senior US executives are well aware of the Chinese preference for gradual change, and also of the authorities' likely resistance on a matter of such ideological importance to them as control of the internet, an arena described by a senior public security official just a few weeks ago as a "battlefield".
Some analysts see Google's announcement as a gambit for what will be extremely tough negotiations with the Chinese, rather than an ultimatum.
But others suggest that the more Google bent towards the demands of the Chinese government, the more harm was done to its reputation overseas, and at some point it had to make a stand.
'Heroic' decision?
Whether you regard Google's market share as impressive or disappointing, compared to its dominance elsewhere, there is little doubt it is not a household name in China in the same way that it is abroad.
A Chinese flag flutters outside Google's China headquarters in Beijing
Google has about 700 staff in its China offices
But Hu Li, a student in Beijing, told the BBC he admired what he called the company's "heroic" decision to offer an unfiltered service, and hailed the announcement to pull out if it could not reach its objective.
Some people even laid flowers outside the company's Beijing headquarters, in the hi-tech Haidian district, as a mark of respect.
But this sentiment was certainly not shared by everyone.
Another man, an IT worker who would only give his surname, Zhong, said the American firm should respect China's situation regarding this kind of issue.
"China has been using censorship for a long time," he said. "Any change can only happen slowly - it won't happen overnight."
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Shanghai
Google's warning that it might pull out of China over cyber attacks has surprised human rights activists here.
They seem unfazed that China is accused of trying to hack into their Gmail accounts. But a major foreign firm like Google being prepared to speak out and challenge the government so directly is unusual.
The Chinese authorities will be infuriated that Google has made its announcement before negotiations with officials have got under way.
China has so far said little publicly in response.
I would bet on a harsh reaction from the Chinese government
Dan Sefarty, Viadeo
An unnamed official quoted by the state news agency Xinhua said only that the authorities were trying to find out more about Google's suggestion it might leave the country.
The company's main Chinese rival Baidu is less reticent. In a blog post that has since been taken down, the firm's chief architect Sun Yunfeng claimed Google was just trying to play down its market failure.
"Would Google top executives still proclaim that they would 'do no evil'," he said, quoting the company's code of conduct, "and quit China if they had taken 80% of China's search market?"
Google's market share is estimated to be around 30% in China, about half the size of Baidu's, the search engine market leader.
The senior Baidu executive said the American company's move would "satisfy the imagination of those Westerners who have never been to China and understand nothing of China but still like to point fingers at China".
'Mismatch' in perception
Others in the technology sector here see this differently.
google.cn homepage ( archive image)
Gmail accounts of rights activists have reportedly been accessed
Dan Sefarty heads Viadeo, the firm that owns the Chinese social networking site Tianji.com.
"Google is rare," he says. "It's a US company succeeding in China. It has impressive market share and is atypical among other foreign companies who try to get into this very tough market."
He warns that Baidu has strong links with the government and may be lobbying hard to gain business advantage from this row.
"I would bet on a harsh reaction from the Chinese government," he says. "Look at what they have done with Facebook and Twitter, which have been blocked in China for six to nine months now."
Opinion is divided over whether or not Google really plans to withdraw from the country, the world's largest internet market.
Duncan Clark, an analyst at the Beijing hi-tech consultancy BDA, says he sees a "mismatch" in perception between the Chinese authorities and the foreign firms doing business here.
"People here think no-one can do without China, and I think now some companies are thinking no-one can deal with China," he told the French news agency AFP.
"There is a feeling that China is emboldened and that they don't need to have the same sort of dialogue [as before]," he said.
Google's senior US executives are well aware of the Chinese preference for gradual change, and also of the authorities' likely resistance on a matter of such ideological importance to them as control of the internet, an arena described by a senior public security official just a few weeks ago as a "battlefield".
Some analysts see Google's announcement as a gambit for what will be extremely tough negotiations with the Chinese, rather than an ultimatum.
But others suggest that the more Google bent towards the demands of the Chinese government, the more harm was done to its reputation overseas, and at some point it had to make a stand.
'Heroic' decision?
Whether you regard Google's market share as impressive or disappointing, compared to its dominance elsewhere, there is little doubt it is not a household name in China in the same way that it is abroad.
A Chinese flag flutters outside Google's China headquarters in Beijing
Google has about 700 staff in its China offices
But Hu Li, a student in Beijing, told the BBC he admired what he called the company's "heroic" decision to offer an unfiltered service, and hailed the announcement to pull out if it could not reach its objective.
Some people even laid flowers outside the company's Beijing headquarters, in the hi-tech Haidian district, as a mark of respect.
But this sentiment was certainly not shared by everyone.
Another man, an IT worker who would only give his surname, Zhong, said the American firm should respect China's situation regarding this kind of issue.
"China has been using censorship for a long time," he said. "Any change can only happen slowly - it won't happen overnight."
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Yahoo sides with Google over China cyber attack
Yahoo sides with Google over China cyber attack
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterJanuary 13, 2010: 1:35 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Yahoo Inc. gave its support to rival Google Inc. Wednesday, denouncing an alleged cyber attack originating in China against Google's network infrastructure.
"We condemn any attempts to infiltrate company networks to obtain user information," a Yahoo representative said in an e-mail statement. "We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose."
Google said late Tuesday that the attack's primary goal was to access Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The company said that the incident, as well as Chinese censorship rules, could force it to shut down its operations in China, which includes Google.cn.
The search giant's ongoing investigation suggests the attack targeted at least twenty other large companies from a variety of industries. Neither Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) nor Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) revealed whether Yahoo was among the victims.
"Yahoo does not generally disclose that type of information, but we take security very seriously and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach," Yahoo said.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), which launched a Chinese version of its search engine Bing in June, said that the company has "no indication that any of our mail properties have been compromised."
0:00 /3:04Yahoo eyes Chinese expansion
In 2005, Yahoo sold its business in China to Alibaba.com, China's largest e-commerce company. Yahoo maintains a 39% financial stake in the company but Yahoo no longer has "operational control or day-to-day management over the Yahoo! China business," according to a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Google did not have any response to Yahoo's statement.
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterJanuary 13, 2010: 1:35 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Yahoo Inc. gave its support to rival Google Inc. Wednesday, denouncing an alleged cyber attack originating in China against Google's network infrastructure.
"We condemn any attempts to infiltrate company networks to obtain user information," a Yahoo representative said in an e-mail statement. "We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose."
Google said late Tuesday that the attack's primary goal was to access Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The company said that the incident, as well as Chinese censorship rules, could force it to shut down its operations in China, which includes Google.cn.
The search giant's ongoing investigation suggests the attack targeted at least twenty other large companies from a variety of industries. Neither Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) nor Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) revealed whether Yahoo was among the victims.
"Yahoo does not generally disclose that type of information, but we take security very seriously and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach," Yahoo said.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), which launched a Chinese version of its search engine Bing in June, said that the company has "no indication that any of our mail properties have been compromised."
0:00 /3:04Yahoo eyes Chinese expansion
In 2005, Yahoo sold its business in China to Alibaba.com, China's largest e-commerce company. Yahoo maintains a 39% financial stake in the company but Yahoo no longer has "operational control or day-to-day management over the Yahoo! China business," according to a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Google did not have any response to Yahoo's statement.
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