As UK businesses brace for Google’s policy change on trademark bidding, there’s a growing amount of evidence that they’ll be hit hard. Today, Hitwise’s Robin Goad provided several solid examples.
“Using Hitwise search data we identified [the] top 100 most searched-for brands in the US and UK during the 12 weeks ending 12/04/2008,” he wrote (using the European date format). “We then looked at what proportion of these brand searches ended up at the brand owners’ websites, and what proportion went to a competitor or other site. The results were very interesting . . . 91.8% of brand searches ended up on the brand owners’ websites in the UK, compared to just 84.2% in the US.”
Hitwise’s Stats On Google Policy Change
Google’s change will bring UK policy into line with US rules, so it’s reasonable to believe brands could lose around 7.6 percent of their search-driven traffic.
Furthermore, in case comparing two things from entirely different continents doesn’t work for you, Goad had a UK-only illustration. “We also looked at the brand term ‘new look’, which is not trademarked in the UK,” he continued. “Because of this, New Look’s competitors and affiliates are currently bidding on the term . . . . As a result, New Look receives just 83.66% of traffic from searches for its own brand – significantly less than its trademark protected competitors, and much closer to levels experienced in non-trademark protected America than the UK.”
May 5th is when Google’s policy changes will go into effect. We wish all our UK readers (and Hitwise and Goad) good luck.
