• Business Week, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 11:46 AM

There are a number of ways to interpret comScore's Google data, and not all of them are bad. Click fraud and a growing number of advertisers sending users to pages that contain nothing but AdWords links have caused the search giant to filter out more clicks that don't lead to conversions for advertisers. Meanwhile, the comScore data itself points out that the total number of Google queries in the U.S. rose 53 percent in January from a year ago, compared with a 49 percent rise in December.

Google has become more concerned with increasing the effectiveness of ads rather than the volume of clicks, as more effective ads means advertisers will pay more for them. The search king is also rolling out a new product offering where advertisers pay for conversions, not clicks. In other words, it's not a one-to-one ratio: fewer clicks don't directly translate to less revenue for Google.

That doesn't mean the alarm caused by the severe drop in click-through rate growth is unfounded. It just means the real story will be told when Google releases first-quarter earnings. As several digital ad industry execs note, click-throughs only tell part of the story.

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