I am sure you've all seen Google's stock price soar to $1,011 on the closing bell on Friday. For stock owners, they are very happy. For Google employees, they are very happy. But for their advertisers and partners, they are not so happy.
Pretty much all the advertiser and webmaster threads on the topic of Google's earnings report and stock price were on the negative side.
We have two threads at WebmasterWorld, a Cre8asite Forum thread, a Hacker News thread and much more.
The tone is just negative. Advertisers claim their CPCs (cost per click) are going up, while Google claims they are going down. Publishers are claiming their earnings are dropping to all time lows, while Google's partner earnings are on the all time high.
What is going on? Is it the algorithm weeding out the bad performers and encouraging the best performers? Is it Google taking more and more from those that feed it content?
At Cre8asite, one said:
Google's cost per click income is down. But their revenues are way up from clicks. WAY UP Duh--that means more people are clicking. But our accts have totally different experiences:
At WebmasterWorld, one said:
Anyone else find the 26% growth in paid clicks interesting?Market share in search is roughly flat for Google. Comscore shows relatively flat traffic YoY. I hand checked July and August YoY numbers...minimal traffic growth..single digit percentages at best.
So, 26% more paid clicks on relatively flat traffic means...?
How do you feel about these numbers? Can you share your own story?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Cre8asite Forum and Hacker News.
