A report issued by SEM company Efficient Frontier (eh hem, take this with a grain of salt) states that Search marketing is still a viable way to spend "ad" money, and will continue to be until this whole recession thing ends in like, 2012.

Too bad 2012 is when the Apocalypse is supposed to come so it won't matter anyway. Here's a quote from the study;

"The report, the largest independent research in the search marketing industry, was based on an analysis of 92 billion impressions and 600 million clicks across a portion of Efficient Frontier customers, which includes some of the world's largest brands. The results of the research indicate that Google has maintained its hold on the search advertising market with 76 percent market share, and Yahoo continued to increase its presence, gaining 3 percent market share year-over-year. Despite the economic downturn and reports of the erosion of other marketing channels in 2008, the index of Efficient Frontier customers included in the Q4 report saw a minimal 8 percent decrease year-over-year, while the retail sector saw a 9 percent uptick in spending year-over-year, an indication of the strength of the search marketing channel."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, quickly, before the entire ad industry misses the SEO boat. Hurry Marty, buy more SEO shops!

Final thought: does it matter that people are still searching the Web if there aren't ads to click on? If a tree falls in the woods, does the stock market improve?

Source

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