• The Rimm-Kaufman Group , Monday, March 3, 2008 11:45 AM

comScore's most recent paid search traffic report may have sparked a bit of paranoia about the stability of Google (and search in general) on Wall Street, but search firms like the Rimm-Kaufman Group continue to release stats that prove the giant is still on top when it comes to paid search--and that the market itself is quite healthy.

For example, from January to February, Google picked up 2.3 points of the Group's clients' ad spend--directly at the expense of Yahoo (down by 1.6 points), MSN (down by 0.6 points) and Ask (down by 0.1 points). Meanwhile, same-client spend on Google was up 22% year-over-year, while corresponding same-client PPC sales were up 26%.

"Because most of our clients instruct us to buy all the high-performing clicks we can for them (rather than, say, establishing absolute dollar budgets by engine), changes in relative share reflect changes in click quality across the engines," says Alan Rimm-Kaufman. So Google's rise in ad spend is likely linked to the giant's move to reduce "accidental" or erroneous clicks--the same quality-assurance change that led to the reduction in overall clicks reported by comScore.

As for the market overall, Rimm-Kaufman acknowledged that there were certain clients in specific verticals that have been "hit hard by the larger economic slowdown"--but Web sales continue to grow, "albeit with somewhat less strength than in the past."

Read the whole story at The Rimm-Kaufman Group »