DM News: Content Listings Loom Larger for Google

DM News surveyed the search engine marketing industry and found the concentration of future inventory lies in contextual marketing, through products like Google's AdSense. Did-It's Kevin Lee said that AdSense is where Google must find its growth, as expanding its distribution among all websites will likely result in more growth than merely increasing the number of searches conducted through Google.

Jupiter's Nate Elliott noted in an email today that search growth for paid listings and paid inclusion grew 34 percent last year, but will see only about 17 percent compound annual growth over the next five.

Contextual listings tend to perform poorly for advertisers relative to search listings - which are generated when viewers are looking for very specific things. Search engines are attempting to compensate for difference by discounting the price for contextual listings prices based on their measured performance for advertisers. Many advertisers would rather see the two types of listings completely separated, creating two different auctions for particular keywords and phrases.