Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Google gets lenient with keywords

BusinessWeek reports

Starting June 4, marketers in about 200 countries will be allowed to purchase rival trademarks as keywords to trigger display of "sponsored search" ads on Google. Honda, for instance, could bid to have one of its ads displayed when a consumer searches the term "Toyota." In recent years some companies have sued Google or the competing company, saying the practice is a form of trademark infringement.

India is on the list of regions for which Google will not investigate the use of trademarks as keywords. However, I'm not sure whether this will spell huge changes in the SEM scenario in our country. Many advertisers in India already use keywords that are rival trademarks to display their ads, as you can see in the example below:

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