Affiliates, Trademarks and Organic Search Engine Results

The whole Affiliate Marketing industry is debating in forums, magazines, blogs and news sites the issue of Affiliates that bid for the merchants trademark(s) at PPC Search Engines.

I have not seen a discussion so far that talks about Affiliates that show up in the top positions of the natural search result pages (SERPS) for the merchant trademark(s) at the search engines.

I haven't much though about this myself to be honest with you, but that changed after I had a conversation with a merchant who was looking for a tool to find affiliates that copied content from certain pages of the Merchants Website.

It is usually not a problem, if affiliates copy content from a merchant site. On the contrary, affiliates are often encouraged to do so. This makes sure that the message send to customers remains true. Something that is not always the case, if the affiliate writes its own content.

The merchant I talked to had no general problem with that, but he has a problem with affiliates that copy content from some very special pages. The merchant is doing active SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or to be more precise, is using the (expensive) services of a SEO Company.

if you are doing active SEO and special optimized Landing Pages are created (one of the items you usually get with an expensive SEO package) , you certainly don't want anybody to copy it. Affiliate Managers (AM's) should look out for Affiliates that do this.

But here is the issue that is very similar to the trademark bidding issue at PPC Search Engines.

I assume that the SEO activities of most companies include pages that are optimized for the merchant Trademarks to make sure that you are showing up on top of the organic SERPS if somebody searches for it, right? This would make sense.

That leaves 9 more spots for other sites on Page one plus 10 on page 2. Who do you like to see there for searches on our trademark? Friends, Partners, Fans if you have them; The good stuff basically. Sites that talk nice about you and/or your products or services.

The merchant I talked to didn't seem to have any problems with his trademark. The first page at Google looks very nice. Merchant himself Spot 1 (Where he should be), Fan Site at spot two and a well known site that refers to the merchant services at spot 3 and so on and so forth. Strong Message. Not even a shadow of something potentially negative and sites that are the Competitors of the merchant .

If you have the problem that some results for your trademark terms are either negative or from competitors, you might want to consider to work with some of your trusted affiliates to get them ranked high for your trademarks. Better would certainly be, if you could achieve the same with your own sites, but that is not always possible for every merchant.

I thought that this issue is very interesting and in my opinion also very important. It should be talked about much more. I'd like to hear different opinions regarding this. What are your thoughts on this?

ValueClick Behavioral Marketing and Commission Junction LMI

Recap
ABestWeb started commenting on Beth Kirsch Post "CJ's Link Change an Indicator of an Integrated ValueClick Behavioral Marketing Network?" at ReveNews and credited me for "fleshing it out".

It was pointed out that "Kellie aka Ms.B" talked about this prior my blog post at this thread at ABW.

To give credits to the right person, I have to give it to Wayne Porter who interview with the VC Exec at iMedia Connection on 5/30. Everything fell into place after I read it.

I had the general feeling, that the Initiative is about tracking of additional data right from the beginning. That's why did I call my rather sarcastic post on 5/26 "Are you ready for CJ Analytics?".

I knew that something was missing at that point. The CJ Podcast hardened this feeling and when I read the interview on 5/30 did finally everything make sense.

I collected more information and did some more specific research before I posted my very long post on 6/5. I had more notes with more to cover, but it was already long enough. I posted some as comment at Beth's post at ReveNews.

Further Research
I did some more research after it struck me on 5/30. ValueClick moves into an area DoubleClick has been before in 2000 and got the federal government involved.

The Federal Trade Commission initiated an investigation of DoubleClick after a suit was filed in California alleging violations of the State Constitution. See the paper from July 2000 published at epic.org.

The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) was mentioned and their "self regulating" activities and the NAI principles.

Check the NAI Members! Look who else is on the list: Hotbar, 180solutions, WhenU This raised some concerns with me, when it comes to the quality of the NAI principles and regulations.It seems that I am not alone, the Paper commented on the NAI principles (regarding opt-in):

"It is also largely unclear what "robust" notice would mean for Internet users, especially important since it will be provided when personal data is to be linked with anonymous data. According to the NAI Principles"

and

"For notice to be robust, the consumer must be afforded clear and conspicuous notice about the scope of the Non-PII that would be made personally identifiable and how the Non-PII will be used as a result of the merger."

ValueClick bought CJ now FastClick. The concerns stated in 2000 sound quite "fresh" again today. DoubleClick's activities back then are somewhat similar to VC's today. The individual activities seemed to be harmless, but someone connected the dots and filed the suit that made the FTC jump in.

I almost submit this form to alert Junk Busters about what I believe to be going on.

I decided to wait until the LMI is live 6/23. If I see the new CJ Links updating the FastClick Cookie, I will go and fill out the form. Why?

The collection of Non-PII will turn to Collection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). All it takes is for the Advertiser to disclose some customer information for the order # tracked by CJ already. Not to CJ of course, that would be a clear issue, transparent to everybody but to ValueClick Media as part of a Advertising Campaign.

Display Advertising is not my specialty, but I believe that Advertisers send Information to VC Media today already. ValueClick has tools for data crunching aimed at improving targeting and conversion or said in single and simple word: profit.

I have to learn more about VC Services, especially the new behavioral product launched this April. Jeff Molander blogged about this at ReveNews.com.

I am not exactly a privacy advocate. It just happened that multiple things got my attention which were all related to this.

It started with Problems that Google Analytics got in Germany. The Product violates German Privacy Laws making it virtually illegal for German Webmasters to use. The Leading German Computer Magazine "C't" covered this in detail. It Explained the technology in detail and it's conflicts with German Laws.

Then CJ came along with their LMI which will create a lot of work for me as publisher. I wanted to know "why" it is necessary to spend so much time (I do not have) on something that made no sense to me. All reasons provided by CJ raised even more questions and raised my suspicion of a "hidden Agenda".

I honestly hope to be proven wrong. May it be because I got it all figured wrong in the first place or because ValueClick reevaluated the problem and decides not to proceed with it.

Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany Started

Today started the biggest Sport event in the world which is watched by more people than the Olympic Games.

Four years ago did I receive some good meant comments from friendly fellow Americans, who reminded me, that the Superball is not this time of the year. The rest simply ignored me having no clue what I was talking about.

But this year is everything a bit different. The fact that the American National Team beat first Mexico and then almost Germany, two "soccer nations", the Information that they were making it as far as the Quarter Finals eventually got around in a Nation that considers Soccer a sport for Girls (The Women Soccer Team was always one of the Top Teams in the World).

Back then when the US kicked Mexico out of the play-offs and moved up to the quarter finals took nobody notice, While the US Team had the success of their Life did the general US population (excluding the Latinos) watch the re-run of an old Seinfeld episode. Comments on the Day after reached from "I am not buying anything" to "That explains why the Mexican/American made such a long face today.".

Now it's 2006 Time for another World Cup (every 4 years), this time being held in Germany, the country I was born and grew up in. I was amazed, that Americans began to mention that the soccer world cup is going to start in Germany soon.

Today on Friday 6/9/06 was the opening match and the nation that was until now as far advanced in Soccer Culture as the Pacific Island/Kingdom of Tonga in the development of High Speed Railway Trains.

The match was between the host of the Cup, Germany and Costa Rica and was played at the capital of the Independent State of Bavaria, Munich; the location which became with it's annual Oktoberfest the synonym for Germany and German Culture.

Germany won 4:2 which was not a surprise since Germany is one of the Favorites for the Title. Germany lost against Brazil at the 2002 World Cup Final. Germany won the title 3 times already only topped by Brazil who won 5 times.

Germany won the 1954, 1974 and 1990 World Cups. The World Cup Title in 1990 was a blessing for Germany.

The Berlin Wall fell less than 1 year earlier and the German reunion was only a few month away. For the few weeks of the Cup and the ecstasy of joy that followed the Winning of the Title reaching its peak when east and west Germany were united again on October 3rd, after 45 years of separation, a true feeling of unity was felt across the nation which was unfortunately not going to last much longer after.

The separation is felt to this day,socially and economically. Remember, the reunion was almost 16 years ago. There is the hope, that this world cup in Germany might can accomplish what years of political work failed to accomplish. The true feeling of unity again.

I left Germany over 7 years ago and are living for 6 years in the US now.

I will share my favors between the German National Team of course and the US National Team which is considered again a strong contender.I hope that I will be able to enjoy several games together with American Friends this time and not only with my European and Mexican/American friends. I will remain neutral if the US and Mexico should clash again, but be on Germany's side whenever they will meet the US or Mexico in a peaceful duel.

FIFA Soccer World Cup 2006 / Germany - Start June,9th (Munich) - Final July, 9th (Berlin)

If you want to learn more about Germany and the Soccer World Cup, visit the following resources.

Germany.Info - Info and Resource Website, Email Newsletter and Podcast in English Language provided by the German Embassy to the United States of America. The Podcast features currently short mini videos introducing the individual National Teams.

M4V World Cup 2006 Intro
M4V Video for Team USA

Visit the Homepage of the International Football Association (FIFA) or Fifa World Cup Homepage. The 2006 Soccer World Cup is sponsored by Yahoo!

For further reading check the Wikipedia entry about the History of the German National Football (soccer) Team

Let's scream together this year: Toooooooor ... or .... Goooooooooal!