Seems to be getting to be fairly regular now that I get to do the Friday end of day. I wonder if it’s because I get to work late and everyone else wants to escape to the weekend? Nah, just being a cynic in my old age I think.
Well the sooner we start the closer we get to home time… or something like that. More…
One of the biggest and most anticipated games of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV, was released last week. From Rockstar Games this is the sequel to the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and has been released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Rumoured to have cost around $100m to develop with over 1,000 people working on it at some point it is the most expensive game ever.
Myself and several other PlusNetters enjoyed GeekUp Sheffield last night. Now I’m heading back to London and hope to catch the end of the IxDA meetup. And then tomorrow afternoon there’s the TechCrunch UK meetup on the south bank. What fun! More…
It’s become quite fashionable to criticise OpenID these days and the latest tirade to come to my attention is from Kyle Neath. Although he raises some valid points, none of them are problems with OpenID. Rather they are general problems with proving identity on the internet. Like most critics of OpenID, Kyle seems to ignore the simple fact that we already have a single, centralised identity: email. Your email address is your identifier for most online services and shares many issues with OpenID. OpenID is not the be all and end all of online identity but it does offer many advantages over the currently favoured username/password system. More…
We’ve teamed up with Imagine publishing to offer you the chance to win one of 5 subscriptions to Total PC Gaming magazine, worth over £40. More…
The sunny weather continues in Sheffield. Get those barbecues fired up if you haven’t already and make the best of it while it lasts. Remember last summer? Yeah, neither do I. More…
The subject of filesharing is one that will run and run. It’s one that elicits emotion and gets people talking. Many many thousands, millions maybe, of people are interested in the subject whether as a file sharer themselves, a copyright holder (or both), an ISP, a legislator or just an outside observer. This subject has people talking and they have many opinions. We posted a couple of months ago about action taken by one software house against people they believed had illegally downloaded and/or uploaded their copyright material and we’ve responded to David Cameron’s call for ISPs to block copyright material. More…
If you’re anything like me, you’ll use your browser’s built-in Google search more than the address bar itself to find websites. The search engine is so pervasive (it’s in my desktop browser, Nintendo Wii Internet channel and the iPhone I’d love to own) that ‘googling’ is often the easiest way.
That’s why this week’s changes to Google’s trademark rules are quite significant. Until 5th May, companies were not permitted to bid against trademarked terms. I commented on this story in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago (requires free registration), and it’s also been covered in The Times Business Section this weekend.
Google’s trademark rule changes effectively force every company to pay for advertisements as well being listed in natural search, or face losing clicks to competitors.
Here’s how it works: If you enter ‘PlusNet’ into Google, it made sense that you should be shown results that are relevant to your search. This is very different from searching for ‘UK broadband’ for example. New rules have changed all this, and it’s all going to drive extra cash towards Google. Already other companies are starting to bid against PlusNet’s terms. It’s natural that we would want to be the top result - after all, you’re searching for PlusNet, right?
At PlusNet we chose to bid against our own name, but we weren’t obliged to. Since May 5th, to flourish in a competitive market, we’re going to have to start paying more to Google or risk being drowned-out by competitors with bigger budgets. Of course, we’re able to bid against other trademark terms, but our competitors have much deeper pockets and currently pay up to £12 per click to Google for every click on the word ‘broadband’.
How else could this affect you? If you run a small business and use search engine marketing to promote your products then you face the same challenge. The risk grows the more successful you are, because your company name will become more of a target if it generates a high volume of searches. For example, if you run a small business of 3 flower shops across your region and generate lots of leads online, you could find that big national players are able to bid against your company name when previously they may not have been able to. If you generate a significant number of searches, it’s a realistic scenario as there are lots of software tools that let search companies target the ‘long tail’ of related terms. It’s like a competitor sticking a big billboard on the side of your corner store.
What do you think?
I’d love to hear your opinions.
Phil Sheard, Emarketing manager @ PlusNet
Twitter me: philsheard
Pete said in a recent Tweet “I hate Tuesdays that masquerade as Mondays.. Bank Holidays are as much a curse as a blessing when you’ve deadlines to meet.” and I have to say, I agree with him. Today’s been a strange day, and coupled with the fact that everyone has twice the amount of work to do to catch up!
As you may know by now, we’ve just increased the usage allowances on three of our Broadband Your Way products. But if you don’t know how much you use, how do you know which product to choose? Our new minisite can help. More…
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Winner of 9 out of 11 Categories in the 2008 USwitch survey. Winner of "Best Consumer ISP" at 2008 ISPA awards. Voted number 1 in the Broadband Choices 2008 survey.
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