"Search engines are not an unstoppable force" is how Russell Perkins opened the session titled Outmaneuvering the Search Engines. Then he introduced speakers who set out to prove his bold statement right. Dan Savage, President of ThomasB2B.com, the new online ad network launched by Thomas Publishing this month, made a very good case.

Dan emphasized that ad networks that are more tightly-focused provide a distinct advantage over broad networks like Google AdSense, because the more narrow focus enhances the ability to match advertisers to the segment of buyers they want to attract. As a result, click-through rates are higher and the quality of the click-throughs is better, which translates into a willingness to pay a higher cost-per-click (CPC). Plus, the well-defined taxonomies derived from the specialized directories from the Thomas Global Register make it easier to select appropriate categories in which to place ads. In the case of Thomas, the taxonomies are also translated into 9 other languages, which avoids problems related to attempting to use literal translations of product names and descriptions.

Jason Kalin, VP Business Development at IndustryBrains, added another voice expressing the power of placing ads on sites whose audience matches the desired characteristics of the advertiser. IndustryBrains was a pioneer in recognizing the importance of allowing advertisers to select focused sites, and relevant categories/sections of the sites, on which to place their ads. IndustryBrains currently has 70 publishing partners onwhose sites advertisers can select to "pay for the brand" of the publisher. Jason pointed to sample publishing partners such as Bankrate, InfoWorld, and JiWire, as success stories, and further indicated that IndustryBrain partner sites receive anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000 per month in ad revenue.

Tarik Qahawish from Netvention also spoke on this panel. Netvention differs from the ad networks mentioned above, but represents a fascinating example of an aggregator that extracts factual data from company web sites to create a database that describes the technical features of a Web site--its software, ecommerce system, ad system and more.