rehabguy - 9:49 am on Jul 13, 2006 (gmt 0)

Gas prices have doubled in the US in the past couple of years, costing me about $1,500 per year more. This is national news.

If a stock went up 15% in a single day, it would be national news.

If Wal-mart decides to raise their prices by 50% overnight, this would be national news.

So when Google suddenly deactivates and raises the price of keywords by 1,000% or more in a single day (.05 to $5/click or more), wouldn't the Drudge Report or Fox News or somebody want to pick that story up?

I'm sure there are enough webmasters here that someone knows somebody in the news business!

News Alert: Google has unsettled thousands of small businesses with a 1,000+% increase in pay-per-click cost without warning, sending many small mom-and-pop companies out of business almost overnight.

Here's a quote from a popular web site, WebmasterWorld.com:

So that puts us at $573,000 per month that Google has decided they don't want. A tangible $6.8m in annual revenue that is gone right now. How many more? At this rate, I bet we could find almost $20m in annual revenue impact -- and given that there's probably 10-100x more people out there that have been impacted that are reporting here ... those would be some significant numbers!