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What are the major threats to growth in the online advertising marketplace?

Big Brother Getting Involved in Search Engines?

This question was posed to a panel of experts during the "Search Engine Advertising" session of this week's Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City, where online branding has been a popular topic of discussion.

SearchEngineWatch.com editor Danny Sullivan was quick to reply by saying that the major players Google and Overture see absolutely no threat whatsoever. The audience responded to his statement with laughter.

Taking the question more seriously, SiteLab International's Dana Todd shared her hope that search advertising doesn't follow in the footsteps of banner advertising. Todd is interested in building banner networks based on the value she believes banners can still provide. She thinks the reason banners were dumped so quickly is because they were over-valued in the past. Now, she wonders whether search advertising is being valued too highly.

She also sees the government as possibly doing something that could affect the marketplace, especially in regards to direct feeds where it's often difficult for users to tell which search engine results placements are paid placements.

Carolyn Griffin, Director of Search Engine Marketing at Carat Interactive sees another threat in the rising cost of paid placement. The big corporations can afford these higher prices but the small businesses can't.

Juptier Research Analyst Niki Scevak says managing the expectations of advertisers is a potentially big threat to growth as well.

What do you think the biggest threat is to the advertising marketplace? Discuss your theories with e-Business professionals at WebProWorld.

Garrett French is the editor of iEntry's eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.