Trademarks and SEM: "Trademarks and SEM
� � � Paid Search Strategies"
Friday, December 05, 2003
"Google’s Trademark Policy"
Google Adwords: FAQ:
Google's trademark policy is fairly simple. The trademark holder governs how the trademark is used as a search term. There are two options: a blacklist of advertisers who may not use your trademark and a whitelist of advertisers who may. For dealing with problems, read Google's full trademark complaint procedure.
Overture's policy is a bit more permissive, allowing advertisers to use a trademarked term as a search term for "comparative advertising, sale of a product bearing the trademark, or commentary about the trademark owner or its product." The policy acknowledges some "fair use" of trademarks results in consumer confusion.
If you have a trademark issue, you may get different resolutions from different engines. Read each engine's policy, and start discussions armed with the appropriate facts and supporting documentation.
Google's trademark policy is fairly simple. The trademark holder governs how the trademark is used as a search term. There are two options: a blacklist of advertisers who may not use your trademark and a whitelist of advertisers who may. For dealing with problems, read Google's full trademark complaint procedure.
Overture's policy is a bit more permissive, allowing advertisers to use a trademarked term as a search term for "comparative advertising, sale of a product bearing the trademark, or commentary about the trademark owner or its product." The policy acknowledges some "fair use" of trademarks results in consumer confusion.
If you have a trademark issue, you may get different resolutions from different engines. Read each engine's policy, and start discussions armed with the appropriate facts and supporting documentation.
News
News: "Espotting inks paid listings deal with Lastminute
London, December 4 2003, (netimperative)
by Susie Harwood
Espotting, the European search marketing network, has landed a pan-European distribution deal with Lastminute.com to provide the online travel firm with paid listings across five countries.
Under the agreement, Lastminute will include Espotting's listings on the exit pages of its four channels: 'hotels, 'flights', 'holidays' and the new 'flight+hotel' dynamic packaging functionality.
The deal covers all four channels in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, but is already live on the UK hotels pages.
A lastminute.com branded pop-under page will be served to users leaving the hotels channel of the site without making a booking, and will display Espotting's top five keyword specific listings to the corresponding channel. For example, the channel 'hotels' will feature 'hotels' and 'cheap hotels'.
Espotting said that its dedicated content editors have worked with Lastminute to select the relevant keywords."
London, December 4 2003, (netimperative)
by Susie Harwood
Espotting, the European search marketing network, has landed a pan-European distribution deal with Lastminute.com to provide the online travel firm with paid listings across five countries.
Under the agreement, Lastminute will include Espotting's listings on the exit pages of its four channels: 'hotels, 'flights', 'holidays' and the new 'flight+hotel' dynamic packaging functionality.
The deal covers all four channels in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, but is already live on the UK hotels pages.
A lastminute.com branded pop-under page will be served to users leaving the hotels channel of the site without making a booking, and will display Espotting's top five keyword specific listings to the corresponding channel. For example, the channel 'hotels' will feature 'hotels' and 'cheap hotels'.
Espotting said that its dedicated content editors have worked with Lastminute to select the relevant keywords."
Travel Stockwatch - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Travel Stockwatch - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Performer of the day, without doubt, was Lastminute.com, which added 16p to close at 292p. What is more, The Times is predicting that the shares will grow in value in coming months and is rating them as a �buy�. "
Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003
Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging - 04-Dec-03. - 06 Nov 2003: "Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging"
Precis of contending theories Google's Florida update - what really happened
Google's Florida update - what really happened: "Any pages that are found to exceed the threshold of 'allowable' seo, are dropped from the results. That's a summary of the theory.
At first I liked this idea because it makes very good sense for a search engine to do it. But I saw pages that were still ranked in the top 10, and that were very well optimized for the searchterms that they were ranked for. If an seo filter was being applied, they wouldn't have been listed at all.
People noticed that the filter was being applied to some searchterms but not to others, so they decided that Google is maintaining a list of searchterms to apply the filter to. I never liked that idea because it doesn't make sense. If Google can apply a filter to one search on-the-fly, it can apply it to all searches on-the-fly.
Another idea that has taken hold is that Google have implemented LocalRank. LocalRank is a method of modifying the rankings based on the interconnectivity between the pages that have been selected to be ranked. I.e. pages in the selected set, that are linked to from other pages in the selected set, are ranked more highly. (Google took out a patent on LocalRank earlier this year). But this idea cannot be right. A brief study of LocalRank shows that the technique does not drop pages from the results. It merely rearranges them a bit.
It was noticed that many search results were biased towards information pages, and commercial pages were either dropped or moved down the rankings. From this sprang the theory that Google is maintaining a list of 'money-words', and modifying the rankings of searches that are done for those words, so that informative pages are displayed rather than commercial ones.
Google sells advertising, and the ads are placed on the search results pages. Every time a person clicks on one of the ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser. "
Conclusion: every effect that the Florida update has caused can be attributed to a Hilltop-type, expert-based system.
I can see flaws in every theory that has been put forward thus far. The flaw in the seo filter idea is that there are highly SEOed pages still ranking in the top 10 for searchterms that they should have been filtered out for. The flaw in the LocalRank theory is that LocalRank doesn't drop pages, but a great many pages have been dropped. The flaw in the list of searchterms is that if a filter can be applied to one searchterm, it can be applied to them all, so why bother maintaining a list. The flaw in the money-words list idea is that, if it ever came out that they were doing it, Google would run the risk of going quickly downhill. I just don't believe that the people at Google are that stupid.
The expert-system, or something like it, accounts for every effect that we see. I am convinced that this is what Google rolled out in the Florida update. Having said that, I must also add that it is still a theory
What next: then the first thing to realise is that the system cannot deal with all searchterms, so targeting non-generalised and lesser search terms, using the usual search engine optimization basics, will still work.
For more generalised searchterms, the page needs to be linked to by multiple expert pages that are unaffiliated with the page. By "unaffiliated" I mean that they must reside on servers with different IP C block addresses than each other and than the target page, and their URLs must not use the same domain name as each other or as the target page. These expert pages can either be found and links requested or they can be created.
At first I liked this idea because it makes very good sense for a search engine to do it. But I saw pages that were still ranked in the top 10, and that were very well optimized for the searchterms that they were ranked for. If an seo filter was being applied, they wouldn't have been listed at all.
People noticed that the filter was being applied to some searchterms but not to others, so they decided that Google is maintaining a list of searchterms to apply the filter to. I never liked that idea because it doesn't make sense. If Google can apply a filter to one search on-the-fly, it can apply it to all searches on-the-fly.
Another idea that has taken hold is that Google have implemented LocalRank. LocalRank is a method of modifying the rankings based on the interconnectivity between the pages that have been selected to be ranked. I.e. pages in the selected set, that are linked to from other pages in the selected set, are ranked more highly. (Google took out a patent on LocalRank earlier this year). But this idea cannot be right. A brief study of LocalRank shows that the technique does not drop pages from the results. It merely rearranges them a bit.
It was noticed that many search results were biased towards information pages, and commercial pages were either dropped or moved down the rankings. From this sprang the theory that Google is maintaining a list of 'money-words', and modifying the rankings of searches that are done for those words, so that informative pages are displayed rather than commercial ones.
Google sells advertising, and the ads are placed on the search results pages. Every time a person clicks on one of the ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser. "
Conclusion: every effect that the Florida update has caused can be attributed to a Hilltop-type, expert-based system.
I can see flaws in every theory that has been put forward thus far. The flaw in the seo filter idea is that there are highly SEOed pages still ranking in the top 10 for searchterms that they should have been filtered out for. The flaw in the LocalRank theory is that LocalRank doesn't drop pages, but a great many pages have been dropped. The flaw in the list of searchterms is that if a filter can be applied to one searchterm, it can be applied to them all, so why bother maintaining a list. The flaw in the money-words list idea is that, if it ever came out that they were doing it, Google would run the risk of going quickly downhill. I just don't believe that the people at Google are that stupid.
The expert-system, or something like it, accounts for every effect that we see. I am convinced that this is what Google rolled out in the Florida update. Having said that, I must also add that it is still a theory
What next: then the first thing to realise is that the system cannot deal with all searchterms, so targeting non-generalised and lesser search terms, using the usual search engine optimization basics, will still work.
For more generalised searchterms, the page needs to be linked to by multiple expert pages that are unaffiliated with the page. By "unaffiliated" I mean that they must reside on servers with different IP C block addresses than each other and than the target page, and their URLs must not use the same domain name as each other or as the target page. These expert pages can either be found and links requested or they can be created.
Florida Fever: The Google Update Uproar
Florida Fever: The Google Update Uproar:
Conclusion: "A number of forum posts indicated that Google was taking aim at SEO. I don't believe so. I think Google is trying to wipe out bad SEO and affiliate programs and unfortunately there are a number of innocent bystanders who got hit in the crossfire. But every indication from Google itself (both from posts to forums and in replies to help requests) seems to indicate that Florida is a work in progress. "
The filter: the Florida update was rolled out November 16th. It appears to be a new filter that is applied to commercially based searches, triggered by certain words in the query. The filter clears out many of the sites that previously populated the top 100.
The sites affected: The target is pretty clear. Its affiliate sites, with domains that contain the keywords, and with a network of keyword links pointing back to the home page of the site. The filter is remarkably effective in removing the affiliate clutter. Unfortunately, legitimate commercial sites with lower page rank are being removed as well. There seems to be a PageRank threshold above which sites are no longer affected by the filter.
Conclusion: "A number of forum posts indicated that Google was taking aim at SEO. I don't believe so. I think Google is trying to wipe out bad SEO and affiliate programs and unfortunately there are a number of innocent bystanders who got hit in the crossfire. But every indication from Google itself (both from posts to forums and in replies to help requests) seems to indicate that Florida is a work in progress. "
The filter: the Florida update was rolled out November 16th. It appears to be a new filter that is applied to commercially based searches, triggered by certain words in the query. The filter clears out many of the sites that previously populated the top 100.
The sites affected: The target is pretty clear. Its affiliate sites, with domains that contain the keywords, and with a network of keyword links pointing back to the home page of the site. The filter is remarkably effective in removing the affiliate clutter. Unfortunately, legitimate commercial sites with lower page rank are being removed as well. There seems to be a PageRank threshold above which sites are no longer affected by the filter.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Google should understand this
Google should understand this: "1) A webmaster's point of view:
Google owes its existence to Adwords. Adwords supply the revenue for serving the 'free' results.
If I spend money on advertising with any media, I expect that media to be of reasonable standard and observe some deontology.
As an Adwords advertiser, I expect from Google to serve 'free' results that are unbiaised and independent from their advertising section.
If (this is only an 'if' ) it was proven that Google:
- have used Adwords data, in any way, to influence their 'free' results;
- have tampered with their 'free' results in order to get more Adwords revenue;
- have introduced one or several 'spies' into the webmaster community with the purpose of disseminating supposedly helpful, but in reality fallacious information that will lead to the fall of money-making websites, and lead their owners to hopefully buy more Adwords;
If any of the above was true, I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
2) A consumer's point of view:
Google is not free. I pay for the 'free' results by purchasing any item that is being sold through Adwords. I expect the 'free' results to be unbiaised and independent from their advertising section. If it was proven that Google are tampering with the free results to gain financial advantage, I would feel deceived and I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
-- "
Google owes its existence to Adwords. Adwords supply the revenue for serving the 'free' results.
If I spend money on advertising with any media, I expect that media to be of reasonable standard and observe some deontology.
As an Adwords advertiser, I expect from Google to serve 'free' results that are unbiaised and independent from their advertising section.
If (this is only an 'if' ) it was proven that Google:
- have used Adwords data, in any way, to influence their 'free' results;
- have tampered with their 'free' results in order to get more Adwords revenue;
- have introduced one or several 'spies' into the webmaster community with the purpose of disseminating supposedly helpful, but in reality fallacious information that will lead to the fall of money-making websites, and lead their owners to hopefully buy more Adwords;
If any of the above was true, I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
2) A consumer's point of view:
Google is not free. I pay for the 'free' results by purchasing any item that is being sold through Adwords. I expect the 'free' results to be unbiaised and independent from their advertising section. If it was proven that Google are tampering with the free results to gain financial advantage, I would feel deceived and I would then tend to think that this is a case for an ethic committee... or maybe even for a criminal court?
-- "
Google should understand this
Google should understand this: "If many, many companies/websites enjoyed high rankings for a variety of search phrases and these rankings were procured in a 'legal and ethical way' and then lost all their rankings because of an algorithm change that again, unfairly penalized these companies for no apparent reason (while other competing companies remained unscathed) then these companies ABSOLUTELY would have a bonafide legal argument against Google.
Google has a wide reach on the internet (some might say a monopoly as it pertains to search results) and with that comes alot of responsibilty AND scrutiny, warranted or not"
Google has a wide reach on the internet (some might say a monopoly as it pertains to search results) and with that comes alot of responsibilty AND scrutiny, warranted or not"
Cre8asite forums. Google - Google is stemming now. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]
Cre8asite forums. Google - Google is stemming now. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]: "Quote:
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.
This is taken from the Google Search Tips. Until recently it said quite the reverse. That's a pretty fundamental change to bring in without a fanfare!"
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for 'pet lemur dietary needs', Google will also search for 'pet lemur diet needs', and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.
This is taken from the Google Search Tips. Until recently it said quite the reverse. That's a pretty fundamental change to bring in without a fanfare!"
Forbes.com: Change to Google ranking system irks merchants
Forbes.com: Change to Google ranking system irks merchants: "SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Some business owners who depend on Google driving Internet users to their Web sites are angry over a change to the top search engine's ranking system, which they say threatens to dent their revenue during the holiday shopping season."
Traffick | Minding the Internet Search Engines' Business
Traffick | Minding the Internet Search Engines' Business: "I suggested that Google was making more effort to discern the 'type' of information on a page (resource/discussion/information, store/affiliate, company, etc.) 'was heading down the right path.' Norvig even went so far as to agree that the type of thing Google 'might' do would be to look for information such as 'how long a company has been established, what kind of information is it showing to the site visitor, etc.' "
Prepare to be Monetized, Punk: Google Plays Sherriff with Commercially-Oriented Search Listings
Prepare to be Monetized, Punk: Google Plays Sherriff with Commercially-Oriented Search Listings:
"The shortest path to the truth seems to be the following rule: 'where there is a critical mass of advertisers, Google has chosen to re-rank the index.'
Google is doing what search engines have been doing for years: studying common SEO techniques and trying to ensure that clever marketers don't get the upper hand in the "free" index. What's different is how much is at stake if Google can indeed dislodge the best-laid plans of free-riders at this crucial stage.
We've seen trends towards giving more top-ten listings to sites that involve discussion, comparison, content, resources, etc.. It's just been accelerated now, and made more aggressive.
Another revenue angle to consider: Google now actually stands to make money from quality content sites which get ranked well. That's because many of these sites now show AdSense ads, and Google gets a little revenue share from them, too.
Advertisers who have always struck the right balance between paid and unpaid listings, between interesting content and company information, and commercial pages, won't have been caught flat-footed by this latest diabolical Google reshuffle.
But plenty of cocky search-marketing cowboys -- those who felt a growing sense of entitlement to rankings they "earned" for their sites on the strength of little more than a few cheap parlor tricks -- have been knocked to the dirt hard in this latest dustup. Most will pick themselves up, knock back a couple of shots of the hard stuff, and prepare themselves to fight again. But some won't."
"The shortest path to the truth seems to be the following rule: 'where there is a critical mass of advertisers, Google has chosen to re-rank the index.'
Google is doing what search engines have been doing for years: studying common SEO techniques and trying to ensure that clever marketers don't get the upper hand in the "free" index. What's different is how much is at stake if Google can indeed dislodge the best-laid plans of free-riders at this crucial stage.
We've seen trends towards giving more top-ten listings to sites that involve discussion, comparison, content, resources, etc.. It's just been accelerated now, and made more aggressive.
Another revenue angle to consider: Google now actually stands to make money from quality content sites which get ranked well. That's because many of these sites now show AdSense ads, and Google gets a little revenue share from them, too.
Advertisers who have always struck the right balance between paid and unpaid listings, between interesting content and company information, and commercial pages, won't have been caught flat-footed by this latest diabolical Google reshuffle.
But plenty of cocky search-marketing cowboys -- those who felt a growing sense of entitlement to rankings they "earned" for their sites on the strength of little more than a few cheap parlor tricks -- have been knocked to the dirt hard in this latest dustup. Most will pick themselves up, knock back a couple of shots of the hard stuff, and prepare themselves to fight again. But some won't."
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
News: Google France fined for trademark violation
Implications....
News: Google France fined for trademark violation: "Luteciel and Viaticum claimed intellectual property rights in 'bourse des vols' and 'bourse des voyages,' which roughly translate to travel market and airflight market."
News: Google France fined for trademark violation: "Luteciel and Viaticum claimed intellectual property rights in 'bourse des vols' and 'bourse des voyages,' which roughly translate to travel market and airflight market."
Search Engines And Legal Issues - previous case list
Search Engines And Legal Issues: "Legal experts urge webmasters to think carefully before using tactics such as competitors' words in meta tags or buying trademarked keywords on search engines."
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com
ADWORDS:
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com:
Google Adwords explained
-------------------------------------------
Jim at Web Diversity provides detailed information on the four tiers
that Google's technology uses to determine where to place a listing.
Essential reading for those that pay for placement on Adwords, or
those thinking about doing so.
"There are 4 types of keywords you can have in Google Adwords :
1. Broad match - your ad is shown if the words you are bidding on show anywhere in your list.
2. Phrase match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown within the context of the search made
3. Exact match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown EXACTLY as the search made.
4. Negative match - your ad is NOT shown if one of the stop words you choose is used"
Got any top tips re Google Adwords? : e-consultancy.com:
Google Adwords explained
-------------------------------------------
Jim at Web Diversity provides detailed information on the four tiers
that Google's technology uses to determine where to place a listing.
Essential reading for those that pay for placement on Adwords, or
those thinking about doing so.
"There are 4 types of keywords you can have in Google Adwords :
1. Broad match - your ad is shown if the words you are bidding on show anywhere in your list.
2. Phrase match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown within the context of the search made
3. Exact match - your ad is shown if the phrase you are bidding on is shown EXACTLY as the search made.
4. Negative match - your ad is NOT shown if one of the stop words you choose is used"
Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization
Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization: "Google's global usage share has reached has increased from 55.2 percent to 56.1 percent since OneStat's previous report.
According to OneStat the seven largest search engines on the web are:
Google 56.1%
Yahoo 21.5%
MSN Search 9.4%
AOL Search 3.7%
Terra Lycos 2.3%
Altavista 1.9%
AskJeeves 1.6%"
According to OneStat the seven largest search engines on the web are:
Google 56.1%
Yahoo 21.5%
MSN Search 9.4%
AOL Search 3.7%
Terra Lycos 2.3%
Altavista 1.9%
AskJeeves 1.6%"
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "believe that it is not a simple matter of the hilltop algorithm,.. there is much more in play here. Another interesting algorithm is the Topic-Sensitive-Pagerank algorithm. This algorithm consideres up to 16 or more different PageRank factors.
The original PageRank formula considered only 1 factor. It also failed to recognize any unrelated links. Google tried to compensate for this with things like looking at the anchor text,.. but all these things were just minor updates to compensate for what the original PageRank was missing. This new update does a much better job as it improved determination of relevancy of a back link"
The original PageRank formula considered only 1 factor. It also failed to recognize any unrelated links. Google tried to compensate for this with things like looking at the anchor text,.. but all these things were just minor updates to compensate for what the original PageRank was missing. This new update does a much better job as it improved determination of relevancy of a back link"
One more theory...Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
Google: Current Algo Update-Dance -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "the results are dominated by quasi, directory-like web pages. This is what leads me towards concluding that G has implemented something similar to Hilltop. Studying that document closely compels me think it is likely that an Expert Page can also become an Authority Page.
Expert Pages are described as pages 'about a certain topic with links to many non-affiliated pages about that same topic'.....operative words are 'many' and 'non-affiliated'
Authority Pages are described as 'an authority on the certain topic if and only when some of the best expert pages link to it'.
Directory-like sites that are informational- based fit the profile of both Expert and Authority. Typically, those type of sites would not have an abundance of affiliated links.
IMO, they have been rewarded by fitting the descriptions and having backlinks that are typically non-afilliated."
Expert Pages are described as pages 'about a certain topic with links to many non-affiliated pages about that same topic'.....operative words are 'many' and 'non-affiliated'
Authority Pages are described as 'an authority on the certain topic if and only when some of the best expert pages link to it'.
Directory-like sites that are informational- based fit the profile of both Expert and Authority. Typically, those type of sites would not have an abundance of affiliated links.
IMO, they have been rewarded by fitting the descriptions and having backlinks that are typically non-afilliated."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)