Getting Relevancy Right
As already mentioned, Google is the most dominant SEM platform. This is no surprise since they're the most dominant search engine. So it only makes sense that they'd be dominant in search marketing too. But we should recall why they are the most dominant search engine. How did Google, a relative latecomer, beat out search engines that had established powerful brands like Yahoo! and AltaVista?
They beat them because they got relevancy right. John Battelle in his book The Search tells the fascinating story of how Google rose to power. In 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin were shopping their new superior search algorithm to all the main search engine players including Yahoo!. But one by one, they all took a pass. At the time, the search engine business model revolved around maximizing page views (to sell more banner ad impressions). Yahoo! was busy becoming a portal, keeping visitors inside their content properties for as long as possible. The idea of spending money on a better search product (which would only move people away from Yahoo! and onto their search results faster) was in direct opposition to their revenue model.
But as the search world would find out in dramatic fashion, searchers wanted relevant search results more than branded content. Google had superior search results minus all the spam results common to the other engines. They also had a refreshingly uncluttered interface. With nothing but a click to change search engines, users flocked to Google. And so better search results won the day. Of course, at the time, Google was sucking money for servers and bandwidth with no revenue plan in sight. Nevertheless, they maintained an obsessive focus on refining their process for relevant search results.
And a few years later this obsession would pay off. Because searchers would not be alone in their appreciation of relevancy. Marketers would come to value it too.
