potentialgeek - 10:53 pm on Jun 16, 2007 (gmt 0)

He added that that the impact of eBay’s advertising withdrawal was reduced by the fact that 25 per cent of users visiting the internet auctioneer from Google do so after searching for eBay, rather than by clicking on one of the “sponsored links” that appear next to other search results. The data suggests that Google may be less powerful than people thought, at a time when the search engine is seeking to widen its empire – and drawing fresh criticism almost every day as a result of its perceived growing dominance.

[From The Times, June 16, 2007, 'Google power 'less than thought' as eBay starts boycott']

Google less powerful? Google? No, eBay's leadership, more like it!

This article is silly. All it shows is that eBay doesn't know what it's doing. It took them how many years to figure this out?

I never understood why eBay advertised so excitedly on Google, as if nobody had ever heard of eBay. It's as if all the effort was for those folks who had heard of eBay, had used it before, but were shopping early in the morning, and just happened to accidentally forget it existed when they went to buy something online.

But when the company was committed long-term (how many years?) to advertising dead popes, are we really surprised that its advertising execs were so clueless about Google?

p/g