Oliver_Henniges - 10:09 am on Jul 7, 2012 (gmt 0)

Who could do better SEO than the search-enginge itself?

Though I share all your complaints, I'm much more with CPC-Andrew: Where are the chances? What can we do about it?

@trinorthlightning & Bewenched: I'm sure PPC-Models CAN still compete with pure affiliate-programs, taking into account that most market-places and affiliate-sites take 10-15% of your income. With a good usability and analysis, I think we can do better than that.

What annoys me most with respect to analysis, is the way google gives (or denies to give) information to its "partners":

For instance, quite some time ago I registered for the adwords api-service and despite the not-very-satisfying documentation of the SOAP-interface, I managed to program some tools which helped me a lot to fine-tune adwords-bidding. A true advantage compared to my competitors. But after another project occupied my attention for several months, I came back to my tools later just to find out that another SOAP-Version with different XML-definitions had been established, which would have forced me to do all the work again.

Almost all we have, is google-analytics, which - as someone mentioned elsewhere - may also turn into a paid model over time, and which btw is viewed VERY critical by some ministries in Europe over here.

I have reduced my adwords budget down to 500 per month meanwhile, because I see no means to establish a trustworthy and detailed model of analysing my ROI within this framework. What I'd need from google is an easy-to-identify information on these two really easy questions: How much did I pay for this click and what was the exact search-phrase the visitor had used initially? And that means: I want this information the very moment a visitor has entered my site with the help of google.

If I could get this information, my earnings and thus my adwords spendings could go to the roof. But yet they don't, because google keeps all this information for itself.

I am really wondering whether a "partnership" is really compatible with google overall "scalable approach." Whenever I treat my wife or my customers in a "scalable" manner, I get what I earn: A kick in the arse.