Perhaps the biggest reason behind SEM being transformed by some to exclusively mean paid search is that we often love acronyms. Search engine optimization had a clear acronym: SEO. Paid search suffered by having two unclear ones: PPC and CPC. Which were you supposed to use? And neither was actually specific to search. Pay-per-click and cost-per-click ads happen outside of search listings. Also, unlike with SEO, if you specialized in paid search, you couldn�t call yourself a �PPC� or a �CPC.�
Given this, is it any wonder that those who focused on paid search reached for another term. SEM was already out there. Why not seize that?
That�s what I think happened, more than anything else. Consider this chart:
Those are the number of searches recorded since 2004 on Google for SEM vs. PPC vs. CPC. You can see the rise for SEM really kicks-off in early 2006 while PPC goes into a steady decline. I think that marks when SEM started becoming the preferred term for paid search, for some. ajmalseotipsandtricks.blogspot.com
Given this, is it any wonder that those who focused on paid search reached for another term. SEM was already out there. Why not seize that?
That�s what I think happened, more than anything else. Consider this chart:
Those are the number of searches recorded since 2004 on Google for SEM vs. PPC vs. CPC. You can see the rise for SEM really kicks-off in early 2006 while PPC goes into a steady decline. I think that marks when SEM started becoming the preferred term for paid search, for some. ajmalseotipsandtricks.blogspot.com