Google is pushing Adsense and Adwords ridiculously hard lately. First it’s giving dollars away for Firefox and Adsense referrals (crazy!) and then it’s changing Urchin to Google Analytics so they can give the service out like Snickers on Halloween. We’re stats freaks around here and so we’re definitely excited about checking out a different way of looking at our numbers (however the site appears to be down for maintenance at the moment—or maybe they weren’t ready for the numbers signing up?).
It’s a powerful response to Yahoo’s advertising / development momentum and also a nice blow to Microsoft at the same time. I see them as brilliant moves on Google’s part to increase their user base, but it raises a lot of questions for me: How much money are they tossing up to pay for these two campaigns? How immediate will the returns be? What’s their great plan for Mozilla? What will be Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s response?
Related Stuff
- Firefox Growth Rate Slips Again
- Nice way to Implement Getting Maximum Benefit from $1 Referral Program
- Windows Live is Now Firefox Friendly
Another Question:
Now that they have the inside track on all people who sign up, how are they applying these analytics to their search engine?
Big Brother is watching!
@Chris: I’m sure they will be. I think it’s getting harder and harder for Yahoo and company to keep up. Not that Yahoo is feeling the hurt particularly…but they may.
From what I understand, Google has been telling users that they will not use any of the metrics to use against Adsense accounts that aren’t doing well. As far as privacy goes, I think really any data they collect is really only good in aggregate for the most part. Now it’s also probably useful in keeping track of sites that do extremely well to see examples of techniques that work so they can share with other users to ultimately increase their profit. It really comes down to how much do you trust Google with your data.