Yahoo! gaining on Google

By Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 16 October 2007 03:57

Home IT

The latest search engine performance and market share report from SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets shows Yahoo making significant gains over the most recent quarter both in percentage of search ad impressions and media spend.

"The lift in Yahoo's cost per click (CPC), along with a steady click-through rate (CTR), is quite impressive," said Jordan Rohan, managing director and Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "The data suggests that Yahoo's platform improvements are taking hold at some level. This news should be encouraging to marketers hoping for a more balanced competitive landscape in the paid search space."

"Yahoo found its footing this summer, improving in most metrics, and showing more momentum relative to Google for the first time in a long time," said Roger Barnette, President of SearchIgnite. "As we get deeper into Q4, it will be interesting to see if marketers will continue to find more value in Yahoo's platform as they seasonally increase their search spending."

SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets' joint white paper "Summer Heats up Yahoo,"   reports that spending on Yahoo increased by 7.8 percent from Q2 to Q3 while Google only increased 0.8 percent, reversing previous trends.

SearchIgnite/RBC says it also identified a seasonal shift surrounding the school year that had previously been masked due to Google's rapid growth over the past few years. "As Google's growth trajectory flattens due to market saturation and maturation in broadband penetration, trends related to search volume surrounding the school year are beginning to emerge. SI/RBC identified drop-offs in Google's percentage of ad impressions between April and May (end of college semester) and then again from May-June (end of school year).