Friday May 16 2008
All times are London time

Search Quotes in the FT.com site
FT Logo

April 16, 2008

More evidence points to Google’s faltering clicks

mouse.jpgThe clicking habits of Google’s US users continue to cause concern.

For the third month in a row, the number of “paid clicks” (or impressions on adverts) in the US was little changed in March from a year ago. That is according to data from comScore that started to seep out late on Tuesday (the information is given first to analysts before being made public officially later.)

Overall, for the first quarter, Google’s paid clicks rose only 2 per cent, despite a big jump in the number of searches in the same period.

How much of this is due to Google improving the quality of its market by weeding out low-value or unintentional clicks (which could lead to an off-setting jump in revenue per click,) and how much does it reflect a cyclical downturn? John Aiken at Majestic Research says he things it’s 75 per cent cyclical (and at least one Google executive has hinted that economic weakness is an issue.) If so, that could hit the entire internet sector. The results will be out on Thursday.

2 Responses to “More evidence points to Google’s faltering clicks”

Comments

  1. […] FT.com | Tech Blog | More evidence points to Google’s faltering clicks The clicking habits of Google’s US users continue to cause concern. (tags: GOOGLE) […]

    Posted by: links for 2008-04-16 | April 16th, 2008 at 5:42 pm | Report this comment
  2. I have ‘Google Ads’ on my blog ‘Serge the Concierge’ for over a year now and noticed a significant drop in the past few months.

    This might be caused as much by the relatively poor quality of the ads as the current economic conditions.

    The secret sauce of online advertising might not be more but rather better and more relevant (value added) adverts or even sponsorships/ partnerships (clearly highlighted) between site owners/ publishers and advertisers.

    My few cents

    Serge Lescouarnec
    ‘The French Guy from New Jersey’
    http://www.sergetheconcierge.com

    Posted by: Serge Lescouarnec | April 17th, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Report this comment

Post a comment

Comment Policy




As a final step before posting the comment, please type the two words you see in the image beloweight numbers in the audio clip; this test is to prevent automated robots from posting comments.


More FT Blogs and Forums

  • Clive Crook's blog The FT's chief Washington commentator blogs about intersection of politics and economics

  • Economists' Forum Leading economists and the FT's chief economics commentator, Martin Wolf, debate the big issues

  • Gideon Rachman's blog The FT's chief foreign affairs commentator on world issues and his travels

  • The Undercover Economist Tim Harford's blog on economics in everyday life

  • Willem Buiter's Maverecon The LSE professor blogs on 'economics, politics, ethics, religion, culture, free and open source software (FOSS), and whatever'

  • John Gapper's blog FT chief business commentator talks about business, finance, media and technology

  • Management Blog A forum for the latest thinking about the issues that preoccupy managers around the world'

  • FT Alphaville Instant market news and commentary for finance professionals

  • Brussels Blog By our Brussels writers

  • Westminster Blog By our UK Parliament writers

  • Dear Lucy Columnist Lucy Kellaway and readers solve your workplace woes