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Loren from SEJ just reported that Google Finance is now offering Real-Time Stock Quotes! I think that's something impressive and really worth noting. Yahoo Finance actually charges for that service and to get real-time stock quotes, you basically have to have a brokerage account.

Google has really been competing in this financial news sector with Yahoo! Finance which is actually praised by many to be the top of the top in stock financial news.

Google Finance will offer these sectors for Real-Time quotes:
* Dow Jones Indices
* NASDAQ Indices
* NASDAQ Stock Exchange
* New York Stock Exchange Indices
* S&P Indices
* Shanghai Stock Exchange
* Shenzhen Stock Exchange

I’m not sure if this is new or not from Google search, but if you type in the name of a movie, the first result will be a search result to show you the movie trailer of the movie you’re searching for and allows you to enter your zip code to show you local show times. The movie trailer in Google all point towards Apple sites which show you the movies site and trailers.

Not the most exciting news in search, but definitely shaping up universal search. On the other side of the spectrum, Yahoo also has this feature but I THINK, it has it in a more effective fashion. More appealing and delivers the content faster to the user, which at the end of the day, that’s what the job of the search engine is, deliver what the searcher is searching for as quick and effective as possible.

Google Movie Search:

Yahoo Movie Search:

As I was looking at Google for this, I saw a great opportunity to monetize these movies that have millions of people searching for information on them (movie times, etc). If you look at Google and type in “Sex and The City,” a movie that has millions of fans and millions of followers, Google only has 5 paid ads in its search. 5 PAID ADS. That means there is room for competition.

If you’re looking for the short term buck and can think of a product to sell that has to do with the Sex and The City brand, you’re looking at a possible great niche. Same thing for movies such as Iron Man, and basically any other movie that breaks through big in the market.

Because of strict quality score guidelines and the need to bid on hundreds if not thousands of keywords to get the most possible traffic, I said screw Google. You have Yahoo, which is a huge search engine with billions of monthly searches and lower CPC prices, you have Microsoft, also with billions of searches and low CPC prices and then you have very good contextual networks which can give you billions of ad impressions and again, lower CPC prices.

I put Google of for a while because I thought using other avenues was just as good as/or better than focusing on one engine. Sure, it’s the most power site online I would say but still, it wasn’t EVERYTHING.

About a month ago or more, I launched a project we’ve been working on for a while with a lot of focus and emphasis in Google and results were more then motivating. As you can see in my previous post, “Worry about Ads Before Conversions,” and “#1 Quality Score Factor in Google:Quality Ad,” It is just about really taking a look at your site and doing the best you can to comply with its quality score guidelines. Besides that, some good ads and you’re on your way to rocking in Google.

It is also very important to choose a good niche. I was involved in lead generation for a very, VERY highly competitive market and Google just wasn’t the answer or feasible for that project, especially when you look at your competitors and they are names such as Bank of America, Well Fargo, etc. Can you beat them in bidding for highly competitive keywords?

I will say that I still think Google has some work to do in regards to quality score and how they go about scoring sites using a bot. My point is that I think it is extremely important to be successful using Google as one of your primary sources of online marketing. Don’t leave it behind.

I attended the Orion Panel at SES New York today and I have to say, it blew my mind as far as what I heard and thought about. For the first time, I thought about the impact on search marketing (both organic and paid) universal search has had on searchers behavior.

(not a PalatnikFactor.com image)

The panel consisted of:

• John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media
• James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore, Inc
• Lyndsay Menzies, Managing Director, Big Mouth Media
• Jack Menzel, PM for Universal Search, Google

The session started out by James Lamberti of Comscore showing statistics that have only been shared for the first time ever today at SES about the impact of universal search on the Google SERP’s and how people are interacting and clicking on with video, images, and so fourth now showing in the SERPs.

What is happening? People are clicking on videos, images, and other universal search results in increasing numbers and paid search ads are showing less and less. John Battelle was very controversial in his thoughts and I would say had some great arguments to Jack Menzel of Google about how universal search is changing not only search behavior, but the way Google monetizes its SERPs and where it will go with less paid search ads showing.

John Battelle argued that the Google business model, “10 blue link page” giving searchers results and driving them to pages around the web is now changing to a hub of video, images, and more. Maybe true, but as Mike Grehan commented (moderator along with Kevin Ryan,) said it is just how Google, going from a SERP with 10 blue links, would eventually evolve, its how the web is evolving and how search behavior is evolving.

The organic game is changing and you, as a company who is trying to rank organically, have to adapt to universal change because it is not going anywhere. Are you doing anything with YouTube? Google Video?

Will universal search hurt paid search? Are universal search results relevant or mostly made of crap with user-generated content uploading crap on the net?

These are all questions that are coming to question and will be more and more transparent with time.

So, if you thought you had everything figured out with Google’s quality score and they wouldn’t be making any changes anytime soon, think again.

Inside Adwords announces sites with slow loading time will be penalized by its quality score algorithm.

“As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.”

One way to put make sure your page loads quicker then it does now is to make sure your images aren’t too large in size. There is software that makes image files smaller for faster loading times.

There are so many concerns in the industry about Google becoming an ad agency, I personally already consider Google to be one.

Forget its purchase of Double Click, Google itself is the most powerful site on the internet driving millions and millions of users each day and displaying millions of ads daily and being the biggest brand online.

Google is a self-serve ad agency allowing advertisers to choose paid search (search engine ads), content display ads, bid for audio ads, and print ads venturing into the newspaper arena. The acquisition of YouTube was a great vision for Google to advertise on user-generated video content which has 22.7 billion views in 2007 and growing an incredible rate.

So, back to Double Click, Google did acquire a search marketing/ad network/ company which is significant in what they are trying to achieve.

Google has also ventured into the mobile space which according to Nielson Ratings, mobile search was used by 46 million users in 3Q of 2007.

MarketingVox reports, “Last week Andy Berndt, who left Ogilvy to help launch Google's Creative Lab, told audience members at the Argyle Executive CMO Leadership Forum that "Google is not starting an ad agency."

What constitutes an ad agency? A team of people putting a plan for you? OK, there is a difference between the traditional ad agency and Google but…I wouldn’t argue the fact that Google is or is becoming an ad agency. By 2009-2011, Google Adwords platform, and probably others, will allow to bid for magazine spots and other media sources. Online search and use is only growing, Google has yet to see better days for its advertising revenue.