Today marks the kick off of Jupiter’s Search Engine Strategies Convention in New York City. I will be on site and hope to post updates and interesting information that I take away from the sessions and events that I attend.

This morning I attended a session on the search engine landscape with presentations from comScore, Hitwise, and Neilson NetRatings. All presenters spoke quickly about their user tracking methodologies and then went into current findings. Here are some quick takeaways:

• Google still leads with approx 50% market share
• MSN is gaining on Yahoo for the second place spot and the industry is watching closely to see what Microsoft will do with their desktop position and large marketing muscle.
• Google is very dominant in European markets.
• Companies need to take a broad ROI prospective to measure the true value of their search engine marketing efforts. These tracking companies are showing that conversions can take place 30-90 days out and even longer. Additionally, companies must find ways to measure how search effects offline transactions to gain a full picture. ComScore noticed that in the electronics space, as much as 90% of conversions actually occur offline.

The next few days should be interesting with all the sessions and impending snow storm in New York.

Adam