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The Rimm-Kaufman Group
comScore’s most recent paid search traffic report may have sparked a bit of paranoia about the stability of Google (and search in general) on Wall Street, but search firms like the Rimm-Kaufman Group continue to release stats that prove the giant is still on top when it comes to paid search–and that the market itself is quite healthy.

For example, from January to February, Google picked up 2.3 points of the Group’s clients’ ad spend–directly at the expense of Yahoo (down by 1.6 points), MSN (down by 0.6 points) and Ask (down by 0.1 points). Meanwhile, same-client spend on Google was up 22% year-over-year, while corresponding same-client PPC sales were up 26%.

“Because most of our clients instruct us to buy all the high-performing clicks we can for them (rather than, say, establishing absolute dollar budgets by engine), changes in relative share reflect changes in click quality across the engines,” says Alan Rimm-Kaufman. So Google’s rise in ad spend is likely linked to the giant’s move to reduce “accidental” or erroneous clicks–the same quality-assurance change that led to the reduction in overall clicks reported by comScore.

As for the market overall, Rimm-Kaufman acknowledged that there were certain clients in specific verticals that have been “hit hard by the larger economic slowdown”–but Web sales continue to grow, “albeit with somewhat less strength than in the past.”

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