Google buys Urchin

It was announced this morning that Google would buy Urchin, a web analytics company. Google says they will be making it available to their advertisers to help them maximize their sales. Urchin is an incredibly robust tool and they’ve been around forever. Google anticipates the deal will be closed by the end of April. Terms of the sale were not released but John Battelle heard a rumor of a price of $30 million.

Offering more functionality to their program is what will keep Google ahead of Yahoo and MSN in the pay per click market. With Urchin, Google will increase their usefulness to their advertisers, no longer just leaving analytics up to the site owner.

Andy Beal thinks the Urchin acquisition is a move toward a performance-based pricing model and predicts we’ll see one before the end of the year.

Susan Esparza is former managing editor at Bruce Clay Inc., and has written extensively for clients and internal publications. Along with Bruce Clay, she is co-author of the first edition of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies.

See Susan's author page for links to connect on social media.