Google has announced it will acquire Urchin Software Corporation. Urchin is used by Web site owners to track user traffic and behavior, and it provides tools to allow site owners to quickly change their paid search advertising strategies. This is a very logical fit given the recent announcement about opening up APIs to enable Google ad customers to tune their applications. The new Urchin piece will enable them to analyze performance and tune accordingly.
On the down side, Outsell analyst Marc Strohlein wonders, “When does Google cease to become a search engine and just become a giant ad server that coincidentally returns some search results with the ad? This whole ad thing sometimes seems like a Faustian bargain to me…”
