The recent partnership between Yahoo Japan and Google, which will see the former adopt the juggernaut's search engine, only exacerbates advertisers' and users' concerns that 'there isn't a significant competitor to Google in most global markets'.

Said Matthew Varley, executive general manager of online marketing for the Wotif Group, "Healthy competition is great for advertisers and users alike, and there doesn't seem to be any serious challenge to their market share at this point in time."

Commenting on how the agreement would impact search in Japan, Varley said it was great news for those websites that rank well on Google Japan "as the number of searches are about to increase".

"For those who don't rank well on Google Japan, it is probably time to look at the Webmaster Guidelines and start implementing some best practice SEO according to the law of Google.

"Google produces a better search experience in terms of the quality of their results, so I would expect less SEO SPAM on the new Yahoo Japan. Google has many other "universal search" products such as Maps, Images, and Video which will bring a rich search experience to Yahoo Japan users in future," he told WIT.

From a paid search point of view, he said, targeting multiple geographical markets using the Yahoo Ad technology is time consuming when compared to the Google technology.

"Reaching the Japanese market through the Google Adwords technology will not only save online marketers time, but increase the overall revenue potential for their business.

"Yahoo Japan will know that their revenue per search through the Google results will yield more advertising revenue due to many factors, and no doubt would have been the main driver behind the switch."

Matthew Varley will be sharing his insights on online marketing and search at the WIT Conference as well as conducting a workshop during the WIT Clinics at ITB Asia on "How to make money with your website", on Oct 21, 3-5pm.


For a full listing of speakers and programme and updates, please visit www.webintravel.com

Matthew Varley
Executive General Manager - Online Marketing Wotif Group, Thailand

Matthew joined the Wotif.com team in November 2004 as an Online Marketing Analyst. His potential was quickly recognised and he was promoted to Online Marketing Manager in August 2005 and then again in 2008 to be the Executive General Manager of Online Marketing for Wotif Group globally.

Since starting with the company, Matthew has built the Wotif.com Online Marketing team to 9 members based in multiple locations including Australia and Asia. This team, under Matthew's management, has become one of the most respected in-house Online Marketing teams in Australia and it's innovative strategies have maintained and grown Wotif.com's presence on search engines around the world, in the highly competitive online accommodation industry.

Working as part of the Executive team at Wotif Group, Matthew also manages the strategic direction of the web analytics systems, providing the platform for the executive team to predict and calculate the impacts of new business decisions.

Prior to his appointment at Wotif.com he worked at Metamorfx as a project manager where he managed a team of six to seven designers and programmers. Matthew is formally qualified with a degree in internet computing which he completed at Griffith University.