Between now and 2009, the amount companies should spend to have sponsored links interleaved into search results is expected grow to 5.5 billion dollars.

Revenues are high and are expected to grow to more than double in 2009, said Jupiter Research in its recent study on online advertising. The study, published last week, revealed that paid search advertising is expected to boom faster than any other Internet marketing sector in the next five years, increasing to 5.5 billion dollars in 2009 from 2.6 billion in 2004.

Market analysts said that the search trade is about to become more specialised, concentrating on specific categories like retail, financial services, media, entertainment and travel. Paid search expenditure will soar high in these areas as notable portion of these businesses has shifted online, reports said. The combined revenues in these sectors accounted to 79 percent of the paid search market in 2004, the study revealed.

Jupiter predicted that online travel advertising sales will shoot up to 91 billion dollars in 2009 from 54 billion in 2004 while online shopping revenues will reach 130 billion dollars in 2009 from 66 billion in 2004. Media and entertainment search engines growth will be motivated by classifieds, Jupiter added. Online catalogues revenues are projected to almost double to 3.8 billion in 2009 from 1.9 billion dollars in 2004.

Jupiter, likewise, foresee that the success of specialised search will result in broad-based search engines spinning off search tools for specific niches, a similar route taken by print publishing and television markets.

According to Jupiter analyst, Niki Scevak, the trend will cause marketers to transform how advertising expenditures are allocated online. He further said that if media firms do not seize this opportunity, search engines like Yahoo and Google, as well as a number of established and start-up vertical search engines like Shopping.com and Sidestep will enter to satisfy the market demand.