• April 14, 2009

Major shifts in search advertising took place throughout the first quarter as Bank of America and several used car resellers ranked in AdGooroo's "Top 25 U.S. Advertisers by Search Engine" during the first quarter this year. That's according to the "Q1 2009 Search Engine Advertiser Update" released Monday.

Banking, travel and pre-owned auto dealers increased search budgets, according to the report. Google ad coverage continues to increase, however, the report notes a first-time divergence between the number of first-page advertisers and ad coverage. This may have implications for the growth of the industry. The trend in Yahoo's share of advertisers has made a turnaround from its steady declines in 2008. The report tracked a 10% increase in Yahoo first-page advertisers, a positive sign for the search engine.

Ad Coverage typically proves a good indicator when determining search revenue for the top engines. This latest report identifies an increase in the number of ads that coincides with a decrease in the number of advertisers. This suggests an artificial change in ad coverage, according to the report.--Laurie Sullivan