Search Engine Week

The news of the week is Google Inc. agreed to acquire Urchin Software Corporation, a San Diego, California based web analytics company. Urchin is a web site analytics solution used by web site owners and marketers to, optimize content and track marketing performance.

Google plans to make Urchin tools available to web site owners and marketers to better enable them to increase their advertising return on investment and make their web sites more effective.

New reseller program was launched by Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Inc., a privately held company in the search engine optimization field. The company announced that it is offering the very first authorized reseller program to be offered in the Search Engine Optimization industry.

"Unlike other programs, which simply provide referrals or loose affiliations, the Medallion Partner Program is designed to be a significant and reoccurring revenue stream for our partners and exceptional SEO services or their customers," said Garry Grant, CEO of SEO.

This week Search engine marketing firm iProspect announced that nine of its employees have received certification as Google Advertising Professionals.

This encompasses iProspect's entire paid search team, who each passed the Google Advertising Professional Exam and met other requirements for achieving Google's recognition as a qualified and tested AdWords professional.

The members of iProspect's paid search team also utilize iProspect Search Engine Bidding Agent (iSEBA™) technology to manage and globally optimize the pay per click advertising campaigns in both Google and Overture for the search engine marketing firm's Fortune 500 clients.

The same time search engine marketing agency icrossing announces all members of its Paid Search Management team, led by Director of Media Krista Brady. From the company said that all media managers in icrossing's New York and San Francisco offices passed the qualification exam.

"Becoming Qualified Google Advertising Professionals enables our Media department to be even more highly successful managers as we build upon our expertise and increase efficient levels of productivity for all of our clients," says Brady.

Google's program helps distinguish experienced media professionals. Requirements for becoming Qualified include: being in good standing with Google as an AdWords media manager, managing at least one AdWords account for90 days, maintaining minimum spend levels, and passing the comprehensive and rigorous exam.