Pepperjam President & CEO Offers a Voice for Affiliates on Search Arbitrage Panel at Search-Engine Strategies (SES) - Chicago

Pepperjam, a leading full-service internet marketing agency recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the United States, announced today that company President & CEO, Kristopher B. Jones, will speak on the issue of Search Arbitrage at Search-Engine Strategies - Chicago. Search arbitrage has emerged as one of the hottest issues confronting the search-engine marketing industry largely because Google, the industry's leading search provider, has made a series of controversial changes to its paid search algorithm that has led many experts, including Jones, to conclude that Google is "unfairly penalizing affiliate marketers."

Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam commented, "The issue of search arbitrage is at the forefront of the search-engine and affiliate marketing industry due to Google's most recent "quality score" changes to its Google Adwords algorithm. The most recent algorithm updates attempt to place a rating system on advertiser's landing pages. Google should be commended for taking action against gross examples of search arbitrage, such as when search marketers do nothing more than re-circulate Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher ads.

However, Google's new paid search algorithm results in what appears to be an excessive number of false positives. For instance, thousands of advertising experts, including sophisticated affiliate marketers, online media planners, and comparison shopping arbitragers have been unjustly affected by the changes. Google's automated landing page evaluation has resulted in these advertisers paying as much as ten dollars for a click that may cost fifteen cents to another advertiser."

Kristopher B. Jones will speak on December 6, 2006 at 9:00am - 10:15am during a session entitled, "Search Arbitrage Issues." Search arbitrage is a long-time tactic getting new attention. In the most egregious situation, search arbitrage exists when an advertiser makes money by spending less on search ads designed to attract traffic than they earn from carrying other search and contextual ads on their own web pages. In other situations, sophisticated affiliate marketers and comparison shopping websites, including Shopping.com, Shopzilla, and Pepperjam.com, purchase search ads to attract targeted traffic and intentionally send that traffic through carefully constructed, high-converting landing pages.

Search-Engine Strategies is taking place December 4-7, 2006 in Chicago, IL. To learn more please visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/chicago06/index.html.

Founded in 1999 by well-known internet marketing expert Kristopher B. Jones, Pepperjam (www.pepperjam.com) is a leading full-service internet marketing agency offering a range of professional search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing, and media planning and management services. pepperjamSEARCH, the SEM Agency Division of Pepperjam, is one of only about 25 Companies in the United States recognized as a Google Adwords Qualified Company. Pepperjam offers a dedicated team of certified Google Advertising Professionals and Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassadors, along with advanced, proprietary search analytics and management software called Searchalytics to deliver a robust, ROI driven, search-engine marketing management solution. Pepperjam is a 2006 Inc. 500 company, a designation given to the top 500 fastest growing privately held companies in the Unites States.

Most recently, Pepperjam launched the internet's first comparison shopping blog, which provides users with an integrated shopping and blogging (Shopping + Blogging = Shogging) experience.