Google Search Partner Traffic

[WW MemberName]

I've been analyzing our Google stats over the past few days, and I've noticed that more and more traffic is coming from Google search partners.

So I have a keyword "red widgets", and let’s say I charged for 100 clicks one day. When I check out our logging stats, I see that only 22 clicks came from www.google.com. I realize that Google uses other search partners, but my question is does Google control how much of the search partner traffic you receive?

Let say Google users are actively looking for "red widgets", and hence most of my traffic comes from Google. But for example, yesterday there's not much demand from Google for the term "Red Widgets", will Google "fill in" this lack of demand from www.google.com by using search partners.

The bottom line, it seems like the percentage of traffic from www.google.com for keywords varies throughout each month. Does or can Google vary how much traffic you receive from www.google.com and their search partners.

Thanks in advance....

[exmoorbeast]

Yeah, same for us. We now get more traffic from here than Google.com....and the quality is worse.

[justageek]

Does or can Google vary how much traffic you receive from www.google.com and their search partners

Google cannot directly control the traffic as it depends on how many people click no matter where the ad shows up. Google can only offer the ad for display.

It would be an interesting test to compare what the different ads are for a keyword between Google itself and the down stream partners though. If the ads are indeed different, and a pattern can be seen, then you may be able to say they do some 'tweaking' as to what ad shows up where and when to try and influence where a click originates from.

Of course all bets are off with the AdSense network.

JAG

[WW MemberName]

"Google cannot directly control the traffic as it depends on how many people click no matter where the ad shows up. Google can only offer the ad for display."

Yes but Google can turn off the feed from www.google.com, and only use their partner sites for traffic. This is what I believe is happening to a few of our campaigns. I see that we are getting charged for traffic from Google, yet when I check our web logs, I do not see traffic for that keyword from www.google.com

[justageek]

Right. That's why I was saying it would be interesting to see what the difference between the down stream partners and Google itself.

I suggest you do some testing. See what comes up on Google proper and then see what comes up on a down stream partner that you know you got traffic from and compare them. That's the only way I know of that you might be able to verify the pattern. I'm interested to know what you see :-)

JAG