Google is known for frequently using creative, one-off interpretations of its logo on special occasions. This week saw a particularly special version of the logo released, as the search engine behemoth celebrated its 13th birthday.
On September 27th, users will have seen the famous six letters sat around a table laden with party food, hats sitting atop them in the style of a traditional child’s birthday party.
It seems strange to think that Google is only thirteen, and even odder to reflect on the ways things were before it existed. September 1998 was the start point for Google’s life as a privately held company, though it had in fact been in the minds of creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin (then PhD students at the prestigious Stanford University) since 1996.
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Today Interflora, the self-professed ‘flower experts’ are delighted with a European court ruling that agreed their trade mark has indeed been infringed by Marks and Spencer, via a Pay Per Click advertisement on Google’s Adwords platform.
It is only Half Time though as a judgement is still outstanding on M&S liability, which the Interflora blog suggests is due sometime next year. But this judgement raises an interesting debate and one that has ebbed and flowed throughout the relatively short lifetime of Search Engine Advertising.
In the UK, Google and Yahoo historically did not ‘protect the trade mark’ of their advertisers through the Paid Search channel but capitulated under brand pressure and eventually offered a manual opt in option. The value of this protection was great as the cost of a click could be reduced from an average of say £0.20 to £0.03 or even less, across tens or even hundreds of thousands of clicks that large brands can attract in a month. So big savings were made when Google particularly offered this type of protection in 2004.
So when Google reversed its stance on May 5th 2008 to allow ‘free bidding’ on all keyword terms in the U.K. (it had already relaxed the ruling in the U.S.), there was an uproar from well-known brands as a plethora of companies seized on the opportunity to ‘steal’ customers from their larger competitors by buying keyword position on Google’s Paid Network alongside the more familiar brands.
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Google users can now enjoy a new feature that allows them to see what the weather is doing anywhere on Earth.
Most people use Google Maps to simply look up destinations and perhaps get directions, but now users can check the weather in these places as well by selecting ‘weather’ from the drop-down menu in the top right corner.
There were already a handful of lesser-used extra features available, such as traffic, terrain, public transport and photos. Now for those embarking on just a short trip, it is possible to see whether they should pack sunglasses or an umbrella.
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In a month where Yahoo has sacked their chief executive, Google has announced yet another handy little change to its search results.
Previously, Adwords ads would only bring back one or two lines of sitelinks, or an embedded link to the full ad text, but now users can get a third line of links that provides them with even more options.
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We are delighted to welcome our latest addition to the Banc Media team, William Junger in the position of Sales Executive.
William has successfully passed a probationary period and joins us to support the Sales & Marketing efforts to help raise our profile and introduce new customers to our growing portfolio.
William commented:
“I am really excited about the opportunity to work with Martin and the team. Having recently discovered SEO & PPC, I can see the potential of this product in the business marketing mix.
Banc Media has built up an envious client portfolio and collected an excellent array of testimonials and case studies that will provide me with the sales collateral I need to introduce new customers interested in Search Engine Marketing.”
You can contact William by email: william@bancmedia.com or by phone on: 0845 459 0558.
