It's been a busy week for those who rely on Google
However, the minimum bid on other keyword campaigns have risen well above the original five-cent floor. Google will no longer disable poorly performing relevant text ads. As long as the advertiser agrees to pay the minimum bid on a particular search term, it will remain active in Google's growing inventory of ads.
Website publishers -- big and small -- that rely on Google to duplicate those ads were also eager to see how it would all play out. Google shares its AdWords revenues with AdSense publishers, and the notion of penny bids running rampant had to sound alarming at first.
So how did it all pan out? Over at the Webmasterworld.com forum, it seemed as though most advertisers were upset with the change, which now has them anteing up higher bids for choice keywords. Naturally, AdSense publishers were pleasantly pleased with the initial results.
It's how most would have expected the episode to play itself out. Google had been doing so well -- having topped analyst targets in all four of its first public quarters -- that it was unlikely to implement a change that would result in less revenue for the company.
However, with 99% of the company's revenue coming from its sponsors, it's important to temper this positive financial shift with one caveat -- it's a rewarding move for Google investors as long as the site's advertisers remain faithful.
For a few years now, Yahoo!
That's because this is pretty much a race between Yahoo! and Google. Between their organic audiences and their reach through third-party sites, any sponsor wanting to launch a wide ad campaign based on targeted keywords to draw quality traffic just can't do it without the assistance of one or both of those key players. Microsoft
So maybe it was bold for Google to try to fix what clearly appeared to not be broken. Especially after Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection eBay
It didn't. And in a sense, that's what makes Google special. The beauty of the new bid pricing policy is that it will encourage AdWords sponsors to become more effective advertisers (in three lines of text or fewer). If that improves click-through rates and results in better leads, all three parties -- Google shareholders, AdWords customers, and AdSense publishers -- will be cheering the shift.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz digs Google, but he does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.