April 05, 2005

Overture vs. FindWhat: PPC Patent Dispute Goes to Trial

This has been going on for (literally) years. Overture claim FindWhat's PPC advertising program infringes the patent they have to do with bidding.

Google faced a similar case and settled out of court.

More info on this round at ClickZ.

Posted by duncan at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2005

Yahoo CEO: I expect MSN to stop using Overture

According to Search Engine Watch, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel expects MSN to stop using Overture and run it's own PPC advertising program.

It's been rumoured before and is no surprise; MSN can't be happy adding to Yahoo's bottom line.

MSN did extend their Overture contract; but I suspect there will be an easy get out clause.

We shall see....

Posted by duncan at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2005

Overture catches the re-branding virus; Yahoo will drop Overture brand

Confirmation of my earlier post: Overture Services To Become Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions (press release).

So the rebranding virus has crossed from the UK to the US...

Posted by duncan at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)

Yahoo reported to be planning to phase out "Overture" brand name

According to the LA Times, anyway.

Posted by duncan at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2005

Overture making Ads live with minimal checking?

It seems to be my day for finding dodgy listings on Overture UK:

"UK Sales Lead Provider Lead-in Research

www. [Removed] .co.uk (sponsored listing)"

Since when did Overture allow ALL CAPS in ads?

Then I found:

"None

www. [Removed] .co.uk (sponsored listing)"

Sorry? Title "None" and the Editor didn't notice and made it live anyway?

Oh dear. Looks like Overture's editors are very busy and rushing - or quality control has been relaxed. I suspect the former; they removed another bad listing I spotted very quickly, so that is a good sign.

This highlights a key difference between Google and Overture. Overture check ads before they go live and use human editors whilst Google don't check them as closely and rely on technology.

Overture have to check because Yahoo! demand it for their own editorial and relevancy rules (they did before they bought them, I know for fact).

Personally I see too many irrelevant ads in Google triggered by keywords setup on broadmatch without sufficient negative keywords. I know friends of mine do too - and some have said they now ignore all AdWords results "the ones on the coloured background" as they are always described.

Whilst I don't expect to see a decline in CTRs on AdWords, you have to wonder about the long term impact on CTRs and Google's image of providing relevant results (not to mention the problems of spam in the main results). Technology can only do so much; it can't replace humans - Google's own engineers have been the first to admit that.

Posted by duncan at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2005

Overture "Ghost" advertisers manipulating bids

There's an interesting thread over in the SEM 2.0 group (members only - SEM2.0).

"Ford" who started the thread suggests some advertisers using Overture are running multiple accounts to manipulate bids on certain keywords by forcing them high but receiving lower-cost traffic.

I'm not going to say how here - and I've not seen evidence of this myself - but it sounds like a conspiracy theory, a way for Overture to make more money, right?

I'm not so sure. If this is happening - and as I said, I've not tested it - it could simply be that Overture hasn't thought about this scenario. It's too easy to see conspiring PPC engine staff behind every anomaly, when it simply could be a situation they hadn't planned for or don't have the resources to fix right now, because it's not a major issue affecting most advertisers.

Suffice to say I'll be watching out for this in future, and will blog any solid evidence here.

Posted by duncan at 01:40 PM | Comments (3)