As George pointed out in the previous entry, Google makes the big bucks thanks to their knack for hooking up people with the information they want. I will extend his statement by saying that they also make the big bucks by helping other people make the big bucks using the ecosystem they created with trible combo of search, AdWords and AdSense.
Over at Google's Inside AdWords blog, there's a call for beta testers for a new website optimizer tool. Here's what it does, in the words of Ann-Lee of Google's Website Optimizer team:
Website Optimizer allows you to experiment with different headlines,
copy, and images on your site in order to find out which combination
results in the most conversions. You can use this tool on your landing
page or any page that represents a conversion.At the end of
each experiment, graphical reports show which version of your landing
page users liked best, as measured by which variation had the highest
conversion rate.
Here's a screen capture of Website Optimizer yanked from John Battelle's Searchblog:
This looks like a pretty easy-to-use tool. From the screenshot of Website Optimizer shown above, you can tell with only a glance which landing page design is likely to yield the most conversions (if only we knew what “Combination 11” looked like!).
Website Optimizer looks like it'll be a big hit; after all, compared to other SEO tools, which feel like “drill bits”, Google's offering partners what they really want: holes.