Today on Webmaster Radio I had to host the show solo. Our sympathies go out to Jim Hedger who had the unenviable task of heading to Toronto for a funeral. Our hearts go out to Jim and his family.
Todays show however was a great one. We launched our 10-show series on SEO with a show dedicated entirely to keyword research. We’re also supplementing each show in the series with an article on the subject at hand. You can find the article here.
Speaking with me on the show was Ken McGaffin from WordTracker, Richard Stokes from AdGooroo.com and Curtis Dueck from Epiar. Each lent an interesting angle to the keyword research discussion and I thank all of them. You can visit the Webmaster Radio site and download the podcast if you missed it.
And from Google …
While all SEO seems to involve Google, some news came from them today specifically in the form of their 2007 Q4 earnings. Here’s the summary:
Revenue of $4.83 billion
51% increase over Q4 2006
14% increase over Q3 of 2007
Google owned sites $3.12 billion
AdSense sites brought in $1.64 billion (up 30% over Q4 2006)
Revenue from outside the US totaled $2.32 billion (48% of revenue – up 4%)
Now here’s where I saw something a bit unexpected. Traffic acquisition costs paid to partners increased from $1.22 billion last quarter to $1.44 billion in Q4. Compare this with $1.45 billion generated last quarter vs $1.64 billion in Q4. That means that the amount paid to partners increased by about 18% while the amount earned only increased by 12%. So Google is paying out as a % of revenue more than they were in Q3. That’s assuming we all trust stats. 🙂
Congrats to Google on yet another great quarter. And ya gotta love investors. With a bunch of positive press out prior to the Q4 earning announcement the stock dropped to a low of $534.29 per share at 10am this morning and then rose to a high of $573.00. Basically, someone made 7% ROI in about 6 hours. More than I get in my saving account that’s for sure. 🙂