This week Google announced a new Adwords update which will presumably have a big impact for the advertisers using Google as their main platform. With the new update Google says managing campaigns should become a lot simpler.
But there is more to it than meets the eye. It could implicate a lot of more work from advertisers to turn back the things Google asked them to do last year and next to that it might not always have the result you would think it has. (more…)
There has been a lot of thought-provoking debate and discussion of late, (both here and elsewhere) around the issue of the importance and validity of keyword ranking as a sole measure of success in search engine optimisation.
As personalised search is now default for Google users, rank variations and swings can be witnessed first-hand by anyone trying a few searches; interacting with certain results, rinse and repeat.
Whilst I personally, think that rank checking; (providing clients are informed and educated as to the individual and variable effects of personalised search) is still a fundamental benchmark for SEO campaign effectiveness, I thought it might be useful to mention some other complementary measurements. (more…)
Yesterday I wrote about the definition of brand bidding and ad-hijacking, on how to prevent it and what „evil“ affiliates do to book trademarks that are „protected“ by Google’s complaint form.
As promised, today I will talk about the methods these affiliates use to hide their strategies and how you can monitor your brand to find out if your brand gets hijacked.
Affiliates have several possibilities to hide their strategies when they are abusing trademarks and hijack ad copies. First of all, most of them will use geo-targeting for their campaigns. When they know that the trademarkowner’s office is for example in Munich and the agency is in Berlin, they will cover other cities then Munich and Berlin, to prevent them to see the hijacked ads. (more…)
Editorial note: This post is not meant to give tips and tricks on how to do Brand Bidding and Ad-Hijacking, its meant to give insights on what is done and what is going on.
Two weeks ago, at SMX Munich, I was invited to speak on the blackhat PPC panel. I covered the exciting topic of brand bidding & ad-hijacking in Google Adwords. The topic is pretty actual at the moment, because of the decision of the European Court of Law of March 23 2010.
So what are brand bidding & ad-hijacking? The term Brand bidding is probably pretty clear for most: the use of brands as keywords in Google Adwords. Normally this is done not only by affiliates, but also by competitors, e-commerce shops, auction platforms, price comparison sites etc. (more…)
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