Should Overture and Google Track?

[Mike Sack]

Google and Overture have rolled out tracking tools that they are offering for free to advertisers. These tools get embedded in an advertisers web site and can report on clicks, conversions and even revenue/ROI data.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Please vote and post your comments. Personally, I'd rather have Google and Overture work on making their systems work more efficiently than tracking my revenue. Also, I am bit concerned about what they will do with the revenue information they collect. Is anyone worried they might use it to raise prices?

[Carlos Chacón]

Hello Mike;
I share your comments about how Google and Overture probably will use these tracking tools to increase the prices.
Search Engines are not like two years ago. Now, the SE Business is one of the most attractive for all kind of investors. I have seen a lot of "small" search engines and Directories appear in the online scenario.
Obviously, the competition between industries that offers products and services makes the SE Business even more proficiency.
So, maybe someday the SEO and organic listings will disappear! Who knows: confused:

[James Colborn]

Engines for so long have been under the impression that all traffic converts and that the more traffic driven to the site the better.

While the argument that not allowing Google and Overture to see conversion results is sound not allowing them to track or offer tracking only encourages them to continue pushing more and more traffic on an unsuspecting consumer. As more companies track, be it with Google's tracking or Overture's tracking or from one of the multitude of tracking tools on the market, the better informed they will become on the true potential of their traffic.

If the engines are aware of this information in bulk then by default they will have to change their model to cater to the demand from the market. For example; would you pay over the odds for a phrase that you knew consistently didn't convert to your desired objective? As the market dictates the prices in the PFP engines the market will help determine costs and as such a cost increase might not be such a threat.

End.

[AussieWebmaster]

Engines for so long have been under the impression that all traffic converts and that the more traffic driven to the site the better.

While the argument that not allowing Google and Overture to see conversion results is sound not allowing them to track or offer tracking only encourages them to continue pushing more and more traffic on an unsuspecting consumer. As more companies track, be it with Google's tracking or Overture's tracking or from one of the multitude of tracking tools on the market, the better informed they will become on the true potential of their traffic.

If the engines are aware of this information in bulk then by default they will have to change their model to cater to the demand from the market. For example; would you pay over the odds for a phrase that you knew consistently didn't convert to your desired objective? As the market dictates the prices in the PFP engines the market will help determine costs and as such a cost increase might not be such a threat.

End.
I agree. With the competitive nature of search, it amazes me how few people still use no tracking.
I guess psychic SEM is big this year.