We reported back in July about Google ACE in beta in the US (see Google ACE – Coming Soon.) Well Google ACE has now been rolled out in the UK and rest of Europe for all advertisers to test.
In order to get Google ACE on your account you need to have your account whitelisted by your Google Account Manager or the Google Customer Service team. However, Google have been telling people specifically not to write or blog about this new feature being available…
But what do we care what Google tells us 
So for all of those of you out there who want to start using Google ACE, get your accounts whitelisted. Then it’s time to TEST, TEST, TEST your Google accounts to the max!
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
We have learned that Google have nearly completed their inhouse tool for monitoring the use of sitelinks in PPC ad’s which should be rolled out any time now.
The main points that the tool will be looking for are:
1. Use of symbols in sitelinks
2. Use of excessive punctuation in sitelinks
3. Sitelinks that are all directing to the same page on the site, rather than different pages.
4. Ensuring sitelinks are not directing to different domains.
Google is bringing in these updates to improve ‘user experience’ (not that old reason again!) rather than just allowing advertiser to improve their overall CTR for their ad’s.
So for those of you out there who are in breach of any of the points above…might be time to update your sitelinks or you run the risk of having your sitelinks taken away from your ad’s!
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
Message from the BlackHatters:
Hi everyone, firstly thanks for reading this message. We’ve been amazed at the number of you who keep checking back to Black Hat PPC despite us having gone quiet for the past couple of weeks (we honestly thought no one would notice!)
We’ve been testing a theory of ours (or settling an internal argument – depending on how you look at it) around Google Caffeine. Black Hat PPC had achieved number 1 position in the natural rankings for the term ‘black hat ppc’ in all territories globally. We wanted to see how quickly Caffeine would take to reindex blackhatppc.co.uk and for the site to get it’s rankings back.
The answer: On day one we went back to the first page of the SERP’s for the term ‘black hat ppc’ and by day two the site was back in position 1 for all territories for the keyword we were targeting. May not be too interesting to you, but did settle an internal argument we were having
We’ve been busy changing our hosting providers as well and we want to quash any rumours that we had been taken down by a Google virus for some of the content that we write about on Black Hat PPC.
But we are back now and we’ve got lots and lots and lots to tell you about, so keep checking back to find out all the latest on the art of Black Hat PPC.
‘I get knocked down, but I get up again…you’re never gonna keep us down!’ – Chumbawamba
Hey everyone,
Apologies for the black hat ppc site being down the past few days. We are updating the site and also doing some testing on a new theory of our’s.
But rest assured, the Black Hatters will be back soon…and we’ve got loads to tell you about!
The Black Hatters
Tags:
The BlackHatters have been having some fun today testing the Google Locations One Box on PPC Ad’s. 99% of people out there use the locations one box to (not surprisingly) put the address of their business in. Nothing wrong with that, but we wondered whether we could use the address lines to actually extend your ad copy message.
Low and behold it works! This is what we came up with…
Silly and geeky we know. But may be something that certain business can take advantage of by offering vouchers or coupons for certain branches of their stores. Would be a good way to see the benefits of online PPC marketing if customers were coming into your stores with that particular voucher or coupon as used in the Google Locations One Box.
Just an idea…if anyone has any success with this, we’d like to hear about it!
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
P.S. In case you are wondering…that is the address for Google London
P.P.S. We also had fun pushing Google’s ad that was appearing in Position 2…they are paying £5 a click on their ad’s if anyone is interested.
The BlackHatters were interested to learn of the latest update from Google (yes, another one!) in regards to Sitelinks on PPC ad’s.
Google are currently testing 3 line sitelinks in the USA as part of an experiment that they may roll out in the future. 
Another new ad format from Google! And yet another way of pushing the natural rankings further down the page!
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
The BlackHatters were interested to see the latest Google Innovation that they’d kept pretty quiet and under the radar which is Google ‘Definition in Context.’ We’ve seen this appear on the natural term when you Google the term ‘what is wikipedia’ and you’ll see the ‘definition in context’ option come up as in the ad below…
What is happening here is that if you click on the link headline, instead of being taken through to the Wikipedia page about this, you actually go to a Google Definitions page like this…
It’s not until you go back and click on the ‘definition in context’ link that you will be taken through to the actual Wikipedia page relating to Wikipedia.
As far as the BlackHatters can make out, this is a cheeky way of Google stealing traffic from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit based site that is kept up to date by volunteers and as such the information on Wikipedia is valued content to users. Why do users want to be taken to a Google Definition of ‘what is wikipedia’ and putting an extra click in the users cycle to find the relevant information they are looking for?
We’ll ask Google and see if we can get any response on the matter (unlikely as that may be!) But if we do have any success, we’ll keep Black Hat PPC Blog updated as a result.
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
The Blackhatters learned that Google announced today a change in its trademark policy that will be coming into effect on 14th September 2010.
Google is changing its current trademark policy in the UK, Ireland and Canada so that Google will no longer monitor brand bidding and use of trademarks within ad copies. It is also opening up the branded keyword bidding policy in the rest of Europe that has been in place in the UK and USA for 2 years now. We understand that Google will also allow resellers and affiliates of products to use brand’s trademarked terms without the brand owner’s approval as well as using the ™ symbol in ad copies in the UK. In effect this means that there will be no brand protection for advertisers using Google AdWords in the future by Google as Google states that they will perform a ‘limited investigation’ into trademarked terms for brands in the future.
To read the updated policy change, please check out Google’s Blog and pay particular attention to its amended policy regarding trademarks in ad copy in the UK, Ireland and Canada.
So what?
This means that the poor old brands who spend time and money promoting their own brands for their brand keywords will now be open to be targeted by resellers and affiliates who then take commission for any purchases made through these keywords.
Brands will undoubtedly lose out as they will surely see their own CPC’s increase on their brand terms as new competition comes in on these keywords. They will also see a drop in the number of purchases of their products on their own websites due to the increase in competition as well as paying increased commissions to affiliates and resellers who stand to gain from this change in Google’s trademark policy.
Affiliates, competitors and resellers of products stand to gain from this change in policy. They will now be free to use brand’s terms in ad copy, which will give them better relevancy, click thru rates and quality score resulting in cheaper CPC’s for brand terms they are bidding on. In regards to affiliates, this could still be policed by the affiliate networks themselves in the terms and conditions for affiliates to join a brand’s affiliate scheme. However, anyone who is part of affiliate marketing knows that affiliate networks policing brand keywords is always a tricky to police as affiliates have ways to target their ads and hide from the affiliate networks. The BlackHatters will be interested to see how Google clamps down on affiliates who do mirror sites or bridging pages for merchants terms in future. We reported a while back on ways to keep under Google’s radar regarding suspensions and slaps of Google AdWords accounts, and this could mean new opportunity for rogue affiliates (see our previous article Attention PPC Affiliates! How to keep under Google’s radar and avoid your Google AdWords account being suspended)
The biggest winners however will be good old Google themselves. This increase in competition on brand terms will mean more revenue for Google through AdWords campaigns as there will be an increase in competition for these keywords. The introduction of Google Related Ads on brand terms back in July already increased competition on brands terms which was controlled by Google has already caused murmurings from brands promoting on Google.
We feel that this is a bold move from Google which will no doubt cause concern for brands spending vast sums on PPC advertising in Google AdWords. Brands will surely be looking hard at the relative ROI they receive from Google in comparison to other marketing channels, but Google can remain confident as the Internet reach continues to grow and they are still positioned as the number one search engine globally.
If brands decide to move away from Google then the resellers will take over the brand keywords and as PPC comes at the end of the buying cycle (for brand terms) then brands will stand to lose out even more. Brands will have to continue to advertise on their own brand terms and will have to suffer the increase costs and lower CTR as a result of the increase in competition.
So what happens next?
It will be interesting how this plays out in the run up to December and January, the peak times seasonality wise for Retail and Travel industries, where brands could be hit hard due to this change in policy. I imagine that brands will want to invite affiliates back onto their branded terms to minimise the loss on their brand keywords to competitors and reseller where they earn a smaller margin. Brands will need to monitor their brand keywords closely to see the effect of their impression share and share of voice on their brand and brand + generics terms. Brands should ensure that they are bidding on their own brand terms (no longer can they get away with the idea that their natural rankings will pick up the traffic) and try to ensure they have agreements in place with resellers and affiliates regarding bidding on their brand terms.
The Blackhatters will be monitoring the effect of these changes in policy once introduced in September and will be updating our blog with any news or findings related to this change in Google’s Trademark Policy.
Brought to you by Black Hat PPC.
