Higher Power Web - Search Engines make the Internet go 'round.

Advertising online has taken many forms. We have all been "spammed" or notified that "we are the 1000th person to view this banner, click to claim your prize" and campaigns like this have hurt the image of online advertising. This article will focus on another type of advertising: Pay Per Click (PPC).

Pay Per Click is a form of advertising that allows a person or company to "purchase" keywords from a provider. The links to the left, for example, appear on thousands of sites across the Internet everyday and serve to build the Google network as well as allow advertisers to reach a huge audience. Advertisers compete for top spot by outbidding competition for the best keywords. Those that pay more are given top spot on searches for that keyword and statistics show those in the top spot receive more clicks on their ads. The old adage "you have to spend money to make money" comes to mind here. This article is going to brief you on the "Big 2" of Pay Per Click engines. The first (most obviously) is Google. Rated by most as the best search engine it also has a vast network of paid advertisements mixed within its searches. Many people use Google and may not realize it. Google powers many other search engines such as: AOL, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Netscape Search, iWon, YAHOO and Go.com. Searches on any of these sites will turn up results that Google provides them.

The second and often unknown player is Overture.com. The California based company is responsible for one of the largest PPC engines on the Internet. Providing searches to MSN, Lycos, YAHOO, Hotbot, Excite, Altavista and Alltheweb to name a few.

Hundreds of thousands of businesses bid on millions of keywords on these engines. Pay Per Click has become big business and has even spawned the creation of many companies that specialize in PPC management. These companies can create and manage your PPC campaigns for a fee.

If you have a business and would like to advertise online you will more than likely be advertising with Google or Overture. There are many other options out there (to be discussed at a later date) but none offer the reach of the big boys of PPC.

As coincidence (or should that be experience) has it the Higher Power Web team have experience in PPC and can help your business build their advertising base quickly. Please contact us if you would like more information on what we can do for you.

The Higher Power Team