OK, this one ain’t that relevant to much on our site, but it’s Friday, and when I read this story, I couldn’t stop laughing – so that’s as appropriate as it will get for the start of the week end…
Brad Waller from Revenews.com went in search for quirky stories the other day, and I’m thinking he got plenty. That’s the wonderful thing about the online world… So he found this story:
Now, I know as well as the next person, that money talks, but I have always wondered how eBay manages to be the first to get its trademark protection from Google (who claims it can’t really impose one), and how do they get to bid on everything under the sun – including “cat sick”.
This is not a naff question BTW, I’m capable of figuring out they pay a lot so they’ve twisted a rubber arm or two… so please respond with specifics 
)
Cat sick anyone? Head over to eBay…
Disclaimer: Not looking for controvercy here – just really interested in tactics ;o)
ha ha, I wrote a blogpost about eBay boycott of Google PPC a little while a go.
I just find it so amusing that anyone would thing eBay PPC ads disappearing from Google would be a bad thing. As this example shows they just bid for anything under the sun. I have actually done a search for names a few times and seen eBay ads saying “Looking to buy PERSONS NAME”, hilarious, is eBay pimping people lol..
Ok I better not say too much in case some eBay SEO/PPC person comes after me with a stick! I actually met one of eBays former PPC managers a little while ago and he said what they actually do is input entire dictionaries into their PPC campaigns. Now there must be some kind of software to do this…But my question is WHY on earth would they do this? What are their conversion rates like?
I love these! I used to try and come up with wacky searches for eBay ads just like this. I used to do things like search for “zombies” “brains” “killer tomatoes” and the like just to get silly eBay ads.
Brilliant!
It’s like in the publishing industry – if you can’t sell your inventory, give it to your top advertisers for virtually nothing. eBay auto-generate keyword lists and stick them up with little or no filtering. As long as the CPA doesn’t go AWOL, they don’t care what they’re bidding on. As for trademarks – Google run their own trademark database, so the more senior your AdWords Rep is – the quicker things get actioned.