PPC Competition In Google Will Increase This Q3

July 21st, 2008

Sergey Brin of Google admitted to mistakenly pulling back too much on the number of keywords the company displayed in Q1 and Q2 2008 during their earnings call yesterday. (as reported by Alley Insider)

Google had reduced the number of ads it displays on search results pages by 40% over the last 6 months. They went from an average of 6.5 ads per page to 4 ads. Sergey admitted that they cut back too far and Google plans to increase the number of ads displayed in Q3.

This increase could result in higher CPCs and more competition on valuable search traffic for advertisers and their search agencies + affiliates.

Be prepared to lose some traffic or pay more to keep the same traffic. Of course Q3 is always more competitive as advertisers ramp up for the big holiday push.