inbound - 11:52 am on Oct 30, 2009 (gmt 0)

Another reason that Yahoo isn't getting as much revenue from paid search is that their matching is not as good as AdWords, especially on broad match or terms that are 3 or more words (AdCenter also has that problem).

You have a double whammy of lower search numbers AND lower matching quality (although there is the argument that Yahoo, and especially Bing, convert better when you do get clicks).

Where would you put your PPC management resources? I guess Yahoo is finding out the hard way that Google is retaining advertisers and any reduction in PPC management time is coming straight out of the hours that people spend on anything that isn't Google.

Additionally, every day in which the alternatives to Google are not consolidated is another day in which Google is collecting massively more user data on paid search that allows them to stretch their lead. If Google has 5 times as many clicks as a competitor then it has 5 times the money (or more) to spend on improving their system and the benefit of 5 times as much data to analyse - and let's not forget how good Google is at crunching numbers (and the fact that Hadoop has lost its creator, not good news for Yahoo there).

Looks like an uphill battle for Bing, but Microsoft know that - they want to be a strong second place, that will at least allow them to be in with a chance. If they stay below 10% then they will never catch up (and, whether it's Yahoo or Bing, I certainly do want one to catch up).

Bring on Ask powered by Bing.