Now that Panama is fully functional and adCenter has been established for more than a year, here is how the two platforms compare.
Matt Van Wagner is president and founder of Find Me Faster, a paid search marketing agency based in Nashua, NH
Navigation Bar
Introduction
A Brief Industry Analysis
How The Two Platforms Measure Up
Ad Copy and Rotation
Targeting Options (Dayparting)
Who ever thought two venerable internet giants would be scrambling to be No. 2? While Google is the undisputed leader in paid search marketing, Yahoo! and Microsoft don't even come close. You can see it by the numbers below.
As shown in the chart, Yahoo and Microsoft trail Google significantly in market share. This pattern has been consistent over the years, with Google gaining additional market share each year.
It is puzzling to see Yahoo and Microsoft continually lose market share to Google. Both search engines have devoted significant resources to dislodging the Google paid-search juggernaut. Perhaps Yahoo's management made the wrong judgment call in waiting too long before improving its badly outdated GoTo-Overture interface. Microsoft, on the other hand, was not only late to the party, it waited too long before redeploying resources to counter Google dominance. While both firms struggle to introduce new technology, it looks like Google grabbed all the talent.
Here's how these two firms compare against each other.