Breaking News: Google Lifts Adwords Brand Protection

Google announced today that it will lift the protection it previously provided for brand owners on its PPC network (Adwords).  This was an unanticipated yet not very surprising move on the part of the search giant.

Adwords is Google’s advertising program that allows companies and individuals to bid on keywords in an auction-based system.  In the past Google protected advertisers from others bidding on their brand name but as of next month this will no longer be the case.

What does this mean?

For Google: More money… MUCH MORE

For the Advertisers: Higher budgets because now they have to compete against others for their own brand name.

For Agencies: Also more money as advertisers would need to shed a whole lot more dough for their ppc budgets

For Affiliates &  Affiliate Networks: Also more money, as now Google allow for brand bidding on broad match thereby the affiliates will get more targeted traffic, more conversion and therfore more commissions (Affiliate Networks get a cut from that).  

So all in all everybody wins but the advertisers!  well done Google thats how to win friends and influence people!

Its worth a note that Google never protected advertisers in the US and that MSN and Yahoo never protected advertisers in the US or UK.