From the UK, an interesting application of online geo marketing. Wagamama, an Asian chain with over 60 restaurants in the country, is about to start its first online campaign in partnership with Multimap. Their idea is to target anyone preparing to visit an area near any of their shops. As explained on Brand Republic, a message will appear on the screen calling for people to "click here for noodles in this area". Then, on click, all the restaurants in the area will be pinpointed on the map in detail.

I very much like the idea. It's a smart way to mix geo targeted and affinity marketing.

In Germany, BMW has been trying to artificially boost the popularity ranking of its site. The mighty Google found out the automaker was cheating and apparently kicked it out of its index. As reported on several blogs, BMW has been caught employing doorway pages to attract search engines spiders. While BMW almost immediately removed the pages after the news broke (after having them live for almost 2 years), apparently it was too late. German BMW are now suffering what is known as the “Google death penalty”: a ban from almost any imaginable top search result, and a degrading of the PageRank to the lowest possible value.

Something funny happened today on my Italian blog (see below).

I know it isn't really strange nor unusual, it's just curious to point out.

According to Fathom Online keyword prices have declined during the last year. Mediapost reports keyword prices last month averaged $1.46 per click, reflecting an 11 percent drop from the $1.64 average cost per click paid in November of 2004. Fathom found that year-to-year, the categories posting the largest declines were consumer services (29 percent), retail (25 percent), and mortgages (22 percent).

Who said MSN is the bad guy online? In Spain, they are about to launch a project called "Buscador Solidario".
The idea is to provide users seeking information on drugs, child abuse and depression, with relevant links to charities that help fighting such problems. For example, if a surfer looks for "abuso infantil" on MSN.es he will get among the very first results the link to associations like Save the children.

Reuters reports Google has launched a new feature which will allow advertisers to sign up for AdWords ads directly on the site the want to advertise on. The feature is called "Onsite Advertiser Sign-up" and will surely advertisers looking for niche audiences. As Gary Stein, analyst at Jupiter Research points out, Google's move is a clear sign that the competition is getting fiercer in this sector, and the search engine wants to keep its existing powerful position through the AdSense program.

Also, from the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up program we can also see that adverising on niche sites such as blogs, for example, is becoming more and more important in media plans. I still haven't seen the feature in action, but I definitely look forward to see how it works.

MSN has launched an interactive quiz to promote its search engine. The idea in the "Search Supremo" campaign is to challenge users to find answers to a set of football-related questions by using the search engine.

As Netimperative points out, there is also a competition that will give away football tickets to the fastest player answering the questions.

Jim Coleman, account direct at MRM Worldwide (UK) explains:

Ask Jeeves has decided to sack Mr Jeeves. They say it generates confusion over what the butler character represents. BBC News reports it is still unsure when the character will disappear from the Ask site, but it will soon stop being the brand's most prominent icon.
Basically the idea is to make clear that the search site has evolved, and it can now handle many more types of queries than just straightforward questions. Probably a new brand name will be chosen over the next months to reflect this evolution.

According to a new study by JupiterResearch, most companies don't get search engine marketing right, in the sense they evaluate the results in the wrong way. ClickZ reports there is a lack of measurement of business goals, with many marketers unable to tie conversions to search marketing activities.

Basically, what the research points out is that, despite its growing popularity, search engine marketing is still rather immature. Most of the times it is just a "one shot" activity, and it isn't fully integrated in the brand marketing strategy.

On his Searchblog John Battelle writes about link selling. Quoting a post on O'Reilly Radar John questions whether it's appropriate to sell text links on a popular website just to help the advertiser taking advantage of the site Page Rank popularity. Should we consider this practice as search engine spamming? The discussion is open, and opinions differ.
If you have quite a few time and you're interested in search engine advertising, you should definitely follow the debate.

Jupiter Research forecasts that online advertising will continue to growth in the next five years, reaching $18.9 billion in 2010, compared to $9.3 billion at the end of 2004. Search engine advertising will generate more revenue than standard display advertising by 2010. Rich media spending will grow at a 25% compound annual growth rate (to $3.5 billion) and streaming media will grow at a 30% compound annual growth rate (to $943 million) by 2010.

On iMediaConnection Kevin M. Ryan writes about mobile search and the appeal it should have to marketers. He also points readers to a white paper just released by OneUpWeb "Mobile search and its implications for search engine marketing" investigating the potentials of convergence. If you're trying to understand the characteristics of WAP 2.0 and mobile search marketing opportunities, the paper is a must read.

Competition is getting fiercer among in the paid search market. After Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, now also Ask Jeeves has launched its own advertising network. As Usatoday points out, the problem is Ask Jeeves is currently a partner of Google. Some people say Google won't be happy with the move, some others think it will not care. For now, the search engine representatives just declined to comment the news.

The value of search engine marketing in Europe

MSN France and search engine advertising

Search Marketing Association UK launched

Site Targeting debuts on AdWords

Keyword prices are declining

Not all clicks are alike

SEM booming in the UK

Real estate ads move online

The soap search challenge

Italy, search engines... what?

Microsoft, the new search engine challenge

There is life beyond Google

The love search engine

Click or trick?

Search engines gossip

AdWords and clicks' frauds

Telstra's sexy keywords

Text ads work for branding

Australians search & click

MSN presents its own toolbar

Search: the future it's on the desktop

Google and the future of content targeting

Ask Jeeves is alive and well

The Role of Content-Based Advertising

Ad targeting: troubles and solution...

Quigo Launches Contextual Advertising Platform

You'll love that contextual ad

Paid Search Is 'Hot'

DealTime Launches ROI Tool

Self-service for contextual advertising

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives