New York, NY - (PromotionWorld) - December 10, 2004 - Did-it www.did-it.com, a leading search engine marketing firm today announced its predictions of what the major trends and news stories surrounding Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves and the search engine sector in general. The hot issues for 2005 will have a major impact on marketers who are already spending nearly 50% of their marketing budgets on search in the coming year.
According to Did-it, trademark infringement promises to be the most heated issue in the search engine marketing and advertising business in 2005. Google and Overture have been named in multiple global trademark infringement suits this year, most notably by car insurance giant, Geico. While the Overture lawsuit settled with no change in current business practices at Overture; Google is still being sued for allowing competitors to display links to their own sites whenever users specifically search for the term "Geico."
"This year we are going to see multiple major marketers sue one another and or the engines for use of a trademark as a paid keyword or in the display of a pay-per-click search ad," said Kevin Lee, CEO of Did-it. "If it makes it to court or results in a settlement that changes Google current policies, the Google/Geico case is going to significantly change the competitive marketing landscape."
Another top development poised to change the industry is the move by the engines toward user personalization. The major search engines have all been making strides in the last year toward improving search results through anonymous yet voluntary user profiling.
Did-it's top ten search engine industry news item and trend predictions for 2005 are:
Personalization will demonstrably improve search results through anonymous yet voluntary user profiling
Local search results will improve as users recognize the importance of identifying their location to an engine when searching for local information
Contextual ad servers at the engines or at third parties will begin using behavioral and contextual targeting simultaneously to provide more relevant results
Major portals will crackdown on affiliate spam in the algorithmic results of the engines
Affiliates will be banned from bidding for keywords that lead directly to the merchant site in Google due to over-crowding of similar results in the sponsored areas
Brands will discover the value of search in capturing consumers who have not yet formed strong preferences among the competitive set
Major marketers will continue to sue other marketers and/or portals regarding use of a trademark as a paid keyword or in the displayed text of a PPC search ad.
A major portal will lead the field by offering graphically enhanced search results to advertisers
A major portal will acquire a shopping portal to stem the tide of users who are moving to price comparison engines
Microsoft will launch an auction style PPC platform for MSN.
Click Fraud will remain a hot issue with a spotlight shone on both competetive click fraud and network click fraud.
For further information, please contact CEO, Kevin Lee at (917) 842-0150
About Did-it
Did-it has been a leader in the field of Search Engine Marketing since 1996. Unlike other firms, Did-it's technique and technology deliver profits though a proprietary software platform that updates keyword bidding strategies in real time while also providing a platform for execution of sophisticated tests. CEO Kevin Lee has authored over 100 articles and speaks at top conferences internationally.