Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

Google's buying Urchin Software for an undisclosed sum. It's a very interesting move, but it kind of makes sense that they would want some good tracking software to add to their arsenal.

I don't have much experience with Urchin's products, but I saw it in a demo last November at Wembaster World PubCon. It looked like a pretty robust system. It's good enough for Google, or maybe the price was right and they figure they can improve it to Google standards. Either way, it will be interesting to see how/if they integrate this into their adwords tracking like Yahoo's done with their Marketing Console--that allows users to track non-Yahoo/Overture ads along with their own.

Hopefully they'll decrease the price like to make it more accessible they did with Keyhole. There are a lot of good tracking programs out there today, but they all cost a pretty penny. There is a huge gap between the free/low-cost tracking services and the "enterprise solutions" offered by companies like Omniture, WebTrends, and Urchin. If they do, it will by by invitation only, and will remain in beta for 4 years.