Monday, June 30, 2008

Google Changing Trade Mark Policy in The UK

Google Changing Trademark Policy In The UK

However, from May 5, 2008, trademark complaint investigations will no longer result in Google monitoring or restricting keywords for ads served to users in the UK and Ireland. This will bring the procedure in line with the approach taken in the US and Canada. Complaints received on or after April 4th will be processed under our revised procedure.

The following would be Trademark Complaint Procedures:

Trademark Complaint Procedure - Trademark rights in US, UK, Ireland and Canada
When the team receives complaint from a trademark owner, only they tend to investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, then the advertiser is required to remove the trademarked term and prevent them from using it in the future. Please note that the keywords will not be disabled in response to a trademark complaint. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

If you are a trademark owner (or represent a trademark owner) and have an objection to an advertiser's use of a term corresponding to your trademark in ad text that is consistent with the foregoing, please provide the following information in a signed letter on company stationery:

1. Name of Company
2. Contact information (including email address)
3. List of trademark(s) at issue and the country/countries in which it is registered
4. The identity of the advertisement(s) at issue (via the URL stated on the bottom line of the ad or other identifying information). Please indicate if your complaint is limited to specific advertisers/advertisements or if it is a general objection to all advertisers.
5. If certain affiliates or partners are permitted to use your trademark in their ad content, please list the company names in your letter.
6. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the trademarks described above with the advertisements described above are not authorized by the trademark owner or its agent, nor is such use otherwise permissible under law."
7. Include the following statement: "I represent that the information in this notification is true and correct and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the trademark owner."
8. Your signature.

Please send this written communication with the above information to the following address:

Google Inc.
Attn: Google AdWords, Trademark Complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Trademark Complaint Procedure - Trademark rights outside US, UK, Ireland and Canada
When the team receives a complaint from a trademark owner, review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using a term corresponding to the trademarked term in the ad content or as a keyword trigger. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the ad content or keyword list and will prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in the future. Please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Furthermore, please be aware that we do not take any action in situations where an advertisement is being triggered by non-trademarked terms even though the search query contains a trademarked term. This stems from the fact that Google allows advertisers to use a broad matching system to target their ads. For example, if an advertiser has selected the keyword shoes , that advertiser's ad will appear when a user enters the word "shoes" as a search query, regardless of other search terms that may be used. So, the ad would show if the user entered any of the following search queries: "tennis shoes," "red shoes," or "Nike shoes." This system eliminates the need for the advertiser to specify individually the many different search query combinations that are relevant to their ad.

If you are a trademark owner (or represent a trademark owner) and have an objection to an advertiser's use of a term corresponding to your trademark as a keyword or in ad text that is consistent with the foregoing, please provide the following information in a signed letter on company stationery:

1. Name of Company
2. Contact information (including email address)
3. List of trademark(s) at issue and the country/countries in which it is registered
4. The identity of the advertisement(s) at issue (via the URL stated on the bottom line of the ad or other identifying information). Please indicate if your complaint is limited to specific advertisers/advertisements or if it is a general objection to all advertisers.
5. Are you concerned with: a. the advertisement's content, or
6. the keywords that trigger the advertisement, or
7. both?
8. If your site has an affiliate program, are affiliates permitted to use the trademarked term as a keyword or in the advertisement's content?
9. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the trademarks described above with the advertisements described above is not authorized by the trademark owner or its agent, nor is such use otherwise permissible under law."
10. Include the following statement: "I represent that the information in this notification is true and correct and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the trademark owner."
11. Your signature.

Please send this written communication with the above information to the following address:
Google Inc.
Attn: Google AdWords, Trademark Complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Or via fax to: +1 (650) 649 1774
Attn: Google Trademark Complaints

FAQs:

What's changing in AdWords Trademark Policy? When?
Google has made a policy revision that applies to complaints that we receive regarding trademarks in the UK and Ireland. For complaints received on or after Friday 4 April 2008, we will no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. However, we will continue to perform a limited courtesy investigation of complaints regarding ad text purported to be in violation of a trademark.

Beginning 5 May 2008, keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland.

Why did Google change its trademark policy?
We want advertisers to use keywords that are most relevant to their business and our user's interests. Google's goal is to provide our users with the most relevant information, whether it is from our search results or advertisements. A key to achieving this goal with our ads is providing relevant choices and giving users the opportunity to determine which ads they find most relevant.

Who's affected by the policy change?
Google's revised trademark policy applies to trademarks held in the UK and Ireland. We will continue to handle trademark complaints for all other countries pursuant to the existing trademark policy.

What will happen to existing trademark complaints?
- Complaints received prior to 4 April 2008:
We will investigate complaints against trademark use in ad text and keywords. Complaints will be processed according to the current policy.

- Complaints received on or after 4 April 2008:If the complaint requests that we prevent the use of the trademark in ad text, we will continue our efforts to support this request. Complaints will be processed under our revised procedure.

- All Complaints:Beginning in May 2008, keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark complaint and investigation will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland.

Will Google respond to any trademark complaints in relation to the UK and Ireland?
Yes. With respect to the UK and Ireland, Google will perform limited courtesy investigations of reported trademark violations and complaints related to ad text.

What are your plans to extend this policy to additional countries?
Local laws and business customs differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The revised policy applies to UK and Ireland only.

Will trademark terms in my account start triggering ads?
Keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark investigation may begin triggering your ads in the UK and Ireland, starting 5 May 2008.

Does this mean that I can now use trademark terms as keywords?
Google is not in a position to make recommendations regarding the use of terms corresponding to trademarks. If you have further questions, we encourage you to contact your legal counsel and consult the AdWords Terms and Conditions.

How do I change who is authorised to use my trademark?
If you would like to update your current trademark complaint to edit the list of authorised users of your trademark, you can send us a list of the authorised users, if any, who are allowed to use your trademarked terms in their keywords and/or creatives. You'll find information about our trademark complaint procedures online at http://www.google.co.uk/tm_complaint.html. Since there may now be competition with my ads, can you help me improve my natural search results? The AdWords programme, including the selection of an AdWords ad or AdWords ads content, is unrelated to the ranking of sites on our natural search results. To protect the integrity of our site, we clearly distinguish between search results and advertising. While we understand your concern regarding our recent revision of trademark policy, we may not influence the ranking of any site listed within Google Search results.

Google's order of results is automatically determined by several factors, including our PageRank algorithm. Please take a look at out our 'Why Use Google' page for more detail. The best way to ensure a results listing on Google is for many other sites to link to you.

I also recommend that you visit our webmaster section. This section is designed to answer all your concerns and questions regarding your business or website's presence within the Google search engine.

Who should I contact if I have further questions about this policy change?
You can email trademark-policy-revision@google.co.uk regarding any questions that you might have about the policy change.

Dynamic Keyword Insertion

DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) is a feature of AdWords which allows you to dynamically use the keywords that users search for to be displayed as part of your advert. This can be useful for the following reasons:

1. Words in your ad copy that match keywords users type in are highlighted in bold, helping your ad stand out from the competition
2. Your adverts will appear more relevant to the user as they use the keyterms that triggered the advert, which will usually increase CTR.
3. You can use one adgroup to cover a range of slightly different but related keyterms, therefore maximising your ad relevance without having to type an advert for each keyword variation

Where can I use Dynamic Keyword Insertion?
You can use DKI anywhere in your adverts.. in the title, description line 1 or 2, display url and in your destination url (Usually for tracking purposes, be careful not to break your links with this method!) Ok, how do I use Dynamic Keyword Insertion then? You specify how you'd like the dynamic keywords displayed, and give a default phrase which will be displayed if your dynamic keywords cannot for whatever reason. The format is below:
{keyword:default text}

You can also use the following capitalization on the work 'keyword' to get different effects:
· keyword - no capitalization
· Keyword - First word is capitalized
· KeyWord - Every Word Is Capitalized
· KEYword - EVERY letter in first word is capitalized
· KEYWord - LIKE Above But With Each Word Capitalized
· KEYWORD - EVERY LETTER IS CAPITALIZED


Example

{KeyWord:Widgets}
Buy your {Keyword:Widgets} here
{KEYword:Widgets} with free delivery!

Keyterm in your adgroup: 'blue widgets'

Blue Widgets
Buy your Blue widgets here
BLUE widgets with free delivery!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Display URL Policy

An update to our display URL policy, which took effect from April 1st. Please take a few minutes to read the following information to determine whether you will be affected by this change.

This policy will be strictly enforced regardless of past approvals and will apply to all advertisers.In line with the existing policy, ad's display URL need to match its destination URL (the URL of your landing page).

For example, if the destination URL is http://www.google.com/, your display URL must also be http://www.google.com/. Therefore, the following display URLs would not be acceptable for an ad:" http://www.google.co.uk/ - URL leads to a different site" http://www.gogle.com/ - Redirects to http://www.google.com/ it is still not acceptable " http://www.gooogle.com/ - URL leads to a page showing content identical to http://www.google.com/Tracking URLsMany advertisers utilize tracking URLs within the destination field of their ads. Therefore, these URLs would be accepted only when the landing page URL matches with that of display URL.

For example:
The following be acceptable:
Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
Landing page URL: http://www.google.com/

The following would not be acceptable:
Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
Landing page URL: http://www.trackingurl.com/

Are sub-domains still acceptable? Yes, the use of sub-domains and additional text within the display will continue to be acceptable provided the top-level domain matches the URL of your landing page.

For example, display URLs such as the following: sub.google.comgoogle.com/extratextwww.google.com/extratext
would all be acceptable for the landing page URL below, as the top-level domain of google.com is matched:http://sub.google.com/miscellaneous

Therefore, the above minor changes if required can help advertisers for an effective performance of accounts.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Demographic Bidding - PPC

Demographic bidding
Ever wished to show your ads more often to a specific group like women aged 20-30?

Now it is possible, for advertisers to check the performance with certain demographic groups and then adjust bids accordingly through the new feature called "Demographic bidding" from AdWords.

Demographic bidding helps you display your ads to specific gender and age group audiences on some sites in the Google content network, giving you more control over who your audience is and greater insight into how your ads perform with certain demographic groups.

Demographic bidding and reports are available to advertisers who run contextually targeted or placement-targeted campaigns (with CPC or CPM bidding) on certain sites in the Google content network.

How it works?
Some publishers in our network, such as social networking sites, know the gender and age of their users because their users sign in with that information when they create a profile or fill out registration or subscription forms. Participating publishers anonymize this user reported demographic data and then send it to Google in aggregate form, allowing us to adjust which ads are shown to members of specific demographic groups. (To protect user privacy, AdWords receives this data only from publishers that have permission from users to share their data according to the site's terms and conditions. Users are never identified personally, but only as anonymous aggregated data in the demographic reports. And to protect the privacy of minors, users under 18 can't be targeted demographically.)

There are two ways you can use demographic bidding:
- First, you can modify your bids for a particular audience segment, such as increasing your bid for 25-34 year-old males by 230%.
- Second, you can ask that your ads not be shown to certain demographic groups if they aren't meeting your ROI goals.

If you're not sure which demographic converts best for you, you can run Demographic Reports (found in the Report Center) to guide your bids for certain groups. These reports can show you campaign performance metrics (including impressions, clicks, CTR, and conversion data) by the gender and age range of users who saw your ad. If there are demographic groups that convert well, you can increase your bids for those groups, increasing the frequency your ad will be shown to this audience. You can also choose to have your ad hidden from groups that don't respond well to your campaign.

If you're an AdWords advertiser located in the U.S. or the U.K., we'd like to invite you to try out demographic bidding. You can see which partner sites offer this feature and learn how to get started by visiting this site. We plan to add advertisers on a rolling basis.
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