Ok, a 19% of Google sessions now come from Facebook.com, up from 9% a year ago.

How would that momentum facebook starting point will shift in the coming years?

What if a new Asian web application dominate both of them in 2010?

LARRY KING RESPONDS TO ASHTON KUTCHER’S TWITTER CHALLENGE TO REACH 1 MILLION

15-04-2009 Facebook Refers 19% of Google’s Uniques

RBC Capital Markets points out that 19% of Google’s unique visitors are referred by Facebook, up from just 9% a year ago. Given current rates of growth, they also suggest that Facebook will overtake Google in terms of number of unique visitors by 2011-2012.

These two fairly amazing data points permit a couple of interesting conclusions:

* A much higher proportion of referrals from Facebook go to Google rather than to Yahoo or Microsoft (who actually have a paid agreement with Facebook) which means that Facebook’s growth is pushing Google’s share of search higher than it would be otherwise.
* If Facebook are seeking monetization, then a referral deal with Google seems like a good place to begin.

RBC concludes:

Facebook is actually positive and complementary for Google thus far, but that could change if Facebook’s rapid growth trajectory continues on its current path, or if/when social media can find a business model and attract ad dollars from other online media.

At the very least, we think Facebook as the “starting point” for more and more users on the Internet could create some multiple compression for Google over time, if the momentum continues.

Using my secret-agent financial analyst decoder ring, I can tell you that “multiple compression for Google” in this context should be taken to read, “Google is paying MySpace $1 billion per year for perhaps 3% of Google’s traffic. On that basis Facebook should be hitting Google up for $6 billion a year, no?”

Report: Yahoo Increasing First-Page Advertisers

The keyword-tool provider AdGooroo this week released their Q1 2009 Search Engine Advertising Update which is based on an analysis of the number of ads served per keyword on each of the major search engines.

There are a number of interesting findings in the report, notably:

* that there was a significant increase in the number of ads per keyword but a drop in the number of first-page advertisers – this may point to the search engines artificially increasing the number of ads in some way to make up for decreases in advertising activity;
* Yahoo increased their active advertisers by 10% and advertiser share by 4%, seemingly at the expense of Microsoft;
* Bank of America and resellers of used cars are advertising big right now.

Amazon Pulls Back From Affiliate PPC

Following last week’s news of Amazon suddenly shutting down referral fees to affiliates resulting from PPC traffic, discussion seems to have moved to a recognition that much of the traffic about which Amazon was concerned was not resulting from PPC arbitrage on keywords but instead may have been a product of trademark squatting.

If that’s the case, it means that Amazon took the view that this was traffic they should have been getting anyway and that the PPC affiliates weren’t adding any value. By killing PPC affiliate activity, Amazon can now use the search engines to help police its trademarks and won’t have to pay the affiliate commissions.

So you think your brand is more important than your direct products/services generic search strategy?

Let me express it this way: YOU ARE almost WRONG!

The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

“Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

“Brand affinity is clearly hard wired,” he said. “It is so fundamental to human existence that it’s not going away. It must have a genetic component.”

www.Google.com.lb

Now Google should start placing their own google.com.lb on top of google SERPS:
http://www.google.com.lb/search?hl=en&q=google&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryLB

It couldn’t make it to top of google search results even with 1280 backlinks from other google.com web properties.

Who is the head of Google.com.lb?
Mohammad Gawdat, Google’s managing director for emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Google.com.lb Whois

Google related search trends since 2005:

google.com.lb Whois search LBDR Search

Enter the name of the domain and press the Search button. You must specify the exact name excluding the root domain ( aub and not aub.edu.lb ).

Domain Name:
Search Results for google

google.com.lb
Domain google.com.lb
Descr Google domain for Lebanon
Descr administered by Mizage, Beirut, Lebanon
Admin-c Adel Hajj
Tech-c MarkMonitor
NameServer ns2.google.com (216.239.34.10)
NameServer ns3.google.com (216.239.36.10)
NameServer ns1.google.com (216.239.32.10)
NameServer ns4.google.com (216.239.38.10)
Date 03-FEB-09
Activated 04-FEB-09
Status Active
LBDRA OK
Trademark 104794
Server1 OK
Server2 OK