Last Friday, Jim Cramer invited me to be on his show - Mad Money on CNBC - to discuss how some financial analysts misinterpreted comScore's paid click data and used our U.S. data to incorrectly draw conclusions about Google's world-wide performance. As we've shown previously on this blog, the paid click data that comScore published were for the U.S. only, not worldwide, and have a high (0.94) correlation with Google's U.S. revenues.

Click here to view the interview.

I'm very proud to tell you that comScore rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ this morning. It is a special day for comScore, and I'd like to sincerely thank all of the comScore employees and clients that helped us get to this point.

In addition to going public in June 2007, comScore recently reached other remarkable milestones: we have now produced 100 consecutive months of data, have almost 500 employees, nearly 1000 clients and offices in 8 cities around the globe. We truly measure the digital world, powered by a panel of 2 million people from 170 countries.

Kudos to the hard work and creativity of everyone that has contributed to comScore's success. .

In previous posts, I looked at the emergence of universal search as well as the types of universal search results. Now let’s take a look at how consumers interact with the universal search results page and how they click.

The data tell an interesting story, showing that clicks generally decline on pages with universal search results. Not a surprising result. Most often the intention of a universal search result page is to deliver the desired information directly without requiring an additional click. For instance, if you are looking for a map and directions and they are automatically presented, there is no need to click. If the real-time stock quote is listed for you, there is no need to click. The “Click Performance Index” in this chart indicates the likelihood of a click-through occurring on a page as compared to the average click-through rate on Google. For example, an index of 101 for “No Universal” below indicates that a searcher is 1 percent more likely than average to click on any search result if there are no universal results present on the search results page.

In looking at the chart above, we see that click-through rates are generally lower on pages with universal search results, especially Maps/Stocks/Weather. From my perspective, the most interesting aspect of this data is the relationship between paid click rates and overall click rates in the video and image areas. Image and video results will often have commercial value (i.e. an image of the new iPhone), but the video or image presence on the result page will sometimes discourage clicks away from Google. This is great quandary for the search industry. The best consumer experience often presents the answer right on the result page – no click required! As I mentioned in my last post, get your images, videos, and local store information integrated into maps for easy discovery by the engines. While it might not yield clicks, it will get you “exposure” with the same effect.

While in New York for the NASDAQ Opening Bell Ceremony last week, I had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with CNNMoney.com reporter Poppy Harlow. We talked about everything from Google’s paid click data to the many ways in which the world’s leading companies use comScore data. Click below to watch the interview.