Does anyone remember search engines before Google? Some of us may, but chances are that we've long since been Google converts. In fact, 60% of the search traffic in the United States goes through Google. Google arrived on the scene in 1998 with its funny name that plays on the word Googol (a number written as 1 plus 100 zeros). But Google is much more than a search engine. Google in its current state is an overwhelmingly effective internet marketing tool.

Google, the Marketing Machine

Although Yahoo and MSN are still widely-used search engines, all internet marketers know that Google is the only one worth worrying about. That's because the vast majority of Google's traffic is searches. This is a key point for marketers. Most people using Google are searching for something, often products or services, so marketers need to make sure that their products and services are showing up in Google searches. Google is the middleman between consumers and business and, as everyone knows, the middleman can end up being very rich and very powerful.

Using its Adsense program, Google now offers Cost Per Action (CPA). This means that internet marketers reap larger returns in exchange for displaying Google's links. All professional marketers know that promoting affiliate products gets you 10 times the revenue of putting Adsense on your own site. But when marketers use CPA within Adsense, Adsense suddenly makes more sense to online marketers.

Google has also recently acquired DoubleClick. DoubleClick also includes Performics, a huge online affiliate marketing program. As a result Google can take any user from search to checkout.

Ecommerce and internet marketing are growing at an unbelievable rate. If a company were able to control a majority of those transactions, it would have unmatched power. Because so many consumers inherently trust Google and its search results, marketers who have managed to get top listings for their keywords will have money to throw away. In the same way, marketers who know how to most effectively use Adsense and Adwords realize that Google is a prime source of online income.

But Does Google Play Fair?

Google claims that its PageRank system is an online democracy of a sort. Votes in this case come in the form of links to your site. The more websites link to you, the more popular you are and the higher your page will be ranked in Google's Search Engine Page Results.

Most SEO experts agree that Google has been fair so far. After all, their ranking method allows even the smallest pages to be highly-ranked if they are popular enough. Google even cracked down recently on sites that offer paid-links, which leveled the playing field for those webmasters or marketers without the financial means to pay for traffic.

But everyone agrees that there is some danger in the fact that Google controls every step of the marketing process: search listings, Adwords, and Adsense. Although there is some concern about a monopoly, Google would probably never risk its popularity by doing something so obviously unethical.

How Will Google Grow?

Google just keeps growing, and there's no reason to doubt that it will eventually control all aspects of online marketing. As the internet continues to evolve, and as online media continues to permeate so many aspects of everyday life, it only makes sense that Google will use every possible outlet for marketing to the increasing numbers of internet users.

Getting Yourself on Google

Internet marketing is an enormous undertaking and can be overwhelming to say the least. While many internet marketers have chosen to navigate the worlds of Google, Adsense, and Adwords by themselves, many others have chosen to utilize the services of SEO experts and internet marketing consultants who have many combined years of experience in the business. As Google continues to exert its power in the online world, a savvy marketer must know how to use it to its greatest potential.