Rank for $ales Surveys - 2005

July 15, 2005

SURVEY: Where do you think the search engine marketing industry is headed for the next three years?

Rank for $ales, a professional search engine marketing and search engine optimization firm has concluded a marketing survey on July 15, 2005. In all, 726 website owners, small and medium-size business managers, about ten Fortune 500 companies, twenty Internet marketers, webmasters, SEM's (search engine marketers) and SEO's (search engine optimization experts) participated in the survey. The marketing survey was conducted by email. The survey consisted of 10 simple questions, of which the answers can be found below.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The entire content of this survey is Copyright (c) Rank for $ales, 2005. All rights strictly reserved. Reproduction or duplication is prohibited. Please link to it instead.

1) Where do you think the SEO and SEM industry is headed for the next three years?

* 74% of respondents said it will increase from 30 to 60%
* 13% of respondents said it will remain stable
* 8% of respondents said it will drop anywhere from 5 to 10%
* 5% of respondents said they did'nt know.

2) Do you think Google will maintain its number one position as the search engine the most used on the Internet?

* 86% of respondents said yes, it will continue to be the leader
* 9% of respondents said they will remain stable
* 3% of respondents said Google will lose its No. 1 spot to Yahoo
* 2% of respondents said they did'nt know

3) In your mind, does Yahoo stand a chance of reclaiming the number one position any time soon?

* 31% of respondents said yes, Yahoo has a good chance
* 54% of respondents said no, Google will remain in the top spot
* 11% of respondents said both Yahoo and Google have an equal chance
* 4% of respondents said they did'nt know

4) Do you expect Google to continue making sweeping changes to its search algorithm like it did in 2003 with Update Florida and in 2005 with Update Bourbon?

* 61% of respondents said yes they expect more volatile updates
* 22% of respondents said Google will remain stable
* 9% of respondents said Google has finished improving its algorithms
* 8% of respondents said they did'nt know

5) Where do you see Ask Jeeves in the next one to two years?

* 42% of respondents said it will be acquired by Google or Yahoo
* 27% of respondents said Ask Jeeves will be acquired by others
* 22% of respondents said it will continue on it's own
* 9% of respondents said they did'nt know

6) Which single person (or group of persons) in your mind has done the most to benefit the search industry in the past 10 years?

* 73% of respondents named Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin
* 17% of respondents named Yahoo's CEO Terry Semel
* 4% of respondents named original Yahoo co-founders David Filo and Jerry Yang
* 6% of respondents said they did'nt know

7) Do you think PPC (pay-per-click) will continue to grow as rapidly as it is today, or do you expect it to slow down beginning this year and next?

* 59% of respondents think PPC will continue to thrive
* 21% of respondents think it will stay the same
* 15% of respondents expect PPC to drop, in favor of generic SEO
* 5% of respondents said they did'nt know

8) Do you view click fraud (CF) as a mounting problem, or do you think the search engines have it under control at this time?

9) On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the least important, and 10 being to most important) how much do you think search engine marketing can affect your sales?

* 48% of respondents gave it a 5 as being important
* 33% of respondents gave it a 7 as being quite important
* 12% of respondents gave it a 8 as being very important
* 7% of respondents gave it a 9 as being extremely important

10) If there was a single thing you could change in our industry, what would it be?

* 21% of respondents wished a form of governing body to regulate the SEO industry
* 34% of respondents wished better and more communication from the search engines
* 23% of respondents wished for lower prices from SEO's
* 22% of respondents wished lower PPC costs from the search engines

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The entire content of this survey is Copyright (c) Rank for $ales, 2005. All rights strictly reserved. Reproduction or duplication is prohibited. Please link to it instead.

About Rank for $ales
Since 1997, Rank for $ales is a Professional search engine marketing and search engine optimization firm that helps companies of all sizes improve their visibility and their sales on the Internet. Through its own proprietary technology and from its research and development carried out at its facilities, Rank for $ales has developed safe and accepted SEM and SEO methods sanctioned by all major search engines.

The Rank for $ales website is accessible on the Internet at www.rankforsales.com or you can call our toll free number at 1-800-631-3221.

We strongly suggest you bookmark our web site by clicking here.

You can link to the Rank for Sales web site as much as you like.