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Search-engine marketing becomes a lucrative business

March 22, 2006 |

Part science, part art, search-engine marketing is perhaps the fastest-evolving segment of the Internet. The search-engine marketing industry grew from just over $4 billion in 2004 to $5.75 billion last year, and is expected to reach $7 billion in 2006.

Type the term “search-engine marketing” into a Google box and you’ll find a list of businesses that specialize in improving their customers’ positioning in search results. Now type the same term into a Yahoo search box, and you’ll get some different companies, in a different order.

Try the same exercise tomorrow and you’ll find yet another variation.

Part science, part art, search-engine marketing is perhaps the fastest-evolving segment of the Internet. A cottage industry of search-marketing techies labors to adjust keywords to a search engine’s algorithm, the set of rules used to rank search results. The algorithm used by Google, the market leader, has hundreds to thousands of components that determine the results.

For search-engine marketers, the biggest challenge is keeping up with a moving target—trends. Keywords that work well for a company now could become ineffective within weeks, or even days.

“Even if you think you understand search marketing today, it can totally change tomorrow,” said Peter Hershberg, managing partner of Reprise Media, a New York-based search-marketing agency.

The search-engine marketing industry grew from just over $4 billion in 2004 to $5.75 billion last year, and is expected to reach $7 billion in 2006.

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