Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:45:33 by Craig Wilson
It was reported this week that Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button costs the company an annual $110 million. This is due to the fact that using the feature causes you to go straight to the first natural result, therefore bypassing the adverts on the results page.
A Google VP, Marissa Mayer, was quoted saying "I would say it's less than 1 percent of our searches are done through the "I'm Feeling Lucky" route." Despite being low in usage volume, it's certainly high in popularity. A lot of users see the button as being part of Google's brand and history. Removing it, they say, would make the company "too corporate."
So they don't want to remove something that loses them $110 million every year, what can they do about it? One idea is that the button could go to the top PPC advert instead of the first natural result. Which is great in theory as it saves Google that lost revenue and is also an extra incentive to be the top bidder on a PPC ad. The only problem here is that users should be made aware of when they’re clicking on an advert, which would make more clutter for the Google home page.
But what value is saving $110 million per year to a multi-billion dollar company? I think Google look at this lost revenue as expenditure more than anything. They see the loss as how much it costs to remember their history and stay human after all.
Craig Wilson
Campaign Delivery Manager |
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