Spending on search advertising, a contentious technique used by online marketers to boost website rankings by purchasing paid-for ad listings, spiked 44% in 2005. Unsurprisingly, internet search firms like Google Inc and Yahoo! Inc lead the way. The industry research showed that online advertisers spent a whopping $5.75bn on search marketing last year. This figure is forecast to rise to $11bn by 2010.
Paid placement purchased from a portal or search network, typically in auction environments where keywords and phrases are associated with a cost-per-click fee, accounted for as much as 80% of the spend. Meanwhile web site optimization to draw better search rankings drew 11%. Paid inclusion garnered 4% of the spend with the remainder going to agency solutions and in-house development.
Not surprisingly Google and Yahoo more or less mopped up the market for search engine marketing on the web.
