Overture Launches new Keyword bid matching, Conversion Counter

• Aug. 19, 2003

Overture.com launched a new interface for it's Direct Traffic Centre (DTC) on Sunday August 17^th. They had been promising some big changes with their Keyword Bid structure and they have now introduced a new way to do Pay-per-click. Well not exactly new. The main feature of this summer launch is the ability to conduct keyword bids with Standard (exact) matches, broad matches and phrase matches. This is something Google Adwords has been offering since it launched in 2002. The idea is that you can bid for a keyword and be found for the exact match of the word (for example, "diamond ring"), the broad match ("engagement rings made of diamond") or a phrase match ("diamond ring settings").

The listings will be displayed in the search results in that order. If there are 10 people bidding for Standard Matches the position 11 will be occupied by the person bidding the highest for Broad Match.

For a free trial period, Overture are offering their new Conversion Counter. By cutting a piece of HTML coding and putting it in the code of the page on your site in which you want to track a conversion (i.e. Form submission page or Order page) you will be able to get Conversion Rate information.

Since the launch on August 17^th there have been some glitches and technical problems. A number of people are reporting that their listings are not showing. The Technical Support are even advising that user don't log into their Accounts until the glitches are worked out.

This is a big development on the Overture front, especially since we've been reporting that the purchase by Yahoo will change the landscape of the Search Engine Industry.

As always, we'll be keeping you posted about the latest developments.

Jason Lane
Searchengineposition.com
Search Engine Optimization Firm