• Adweek, Thursday, October 16, 2008 11:15 AM

As Western Civilization spirals rapidly downward in a haze of bad mortgages and government bailouts, the search advertising industry continues to thrive, according to a slew of new reports released in recent days. How long before the rest of the ad industry comes after the search folks with pitchforks and flaming time sheets?

Not that search doesn't have its problems. Poor babies are apparently struggling with scalability issues as their business expands at such an incredible rate. Search spending surged by nearly 27% during the third quarter compared to the same period last year, according to SearchIgnite. But retailers increased their spending by just 1.5% in the third quarter, though conversion rates for most brands increased, said the report.

Another report by Jupiter Research claimed that 92% of large search marketers would increase their spending on search by an average of 22 percent if such campaigns were easier to buy and manage. And 85% complained that the complexity of paid search management is growing. So please, keep the search industry in your prayers.

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