Keywords: Down for Now, but Up over the Long Term
So Fathom Online reported a crash after the holidays in keyword prices. But over the long term, they're going up up up (so implied Google in a BizWeek article ). The trend of branding dollars entering search means continued price inflation.
In case you're skeptical . . . from the SEMPO survey: "Brand awareness was overall the #1 objective advertisers set for search marketing programs, just beating out sales and lead generation initiatives."