Trademark bid move 'to have an effect on paid search'

9th April 2008

Google's decision to allow non-trademark owners to bid for trademarked terms is significant, says Hitwise.

From May, the new rules are to be implemented, in a move that brings a system already active in the paid search sphere in the US and Canada to Britain and Ireland.

On his blog for the web traffic monitor, Robin Goad notes that searches for navigational terms - such as 'ebay' or 'bbc' - have increased their share of total searches since 2005.

Hitwise analysed the top 2,000 search terms over the four week period ending in mid-October in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The percentage of navigational searches, which are likely to be trademarked, rose from 58.2 per cent in 2005 to 76 per cent last year.

Meanwhile, there has been a 36 per cent increase in the number of online car insurance quotes referred from searches, comScore revealed this week.