GoTo- German keyword bidding

German SEO

[webby2001]

The following was posted in the European Search Engines forum the other day but is also relevant here I believe...

"Hi folks,
firstly I'm brand spanking new to the forum but will probably be seen here quite regularly as I'm an SEO freak :-) I live and work in Hannover, Germany but I am in fact an Englishman.

Enough about me, let me get on with the question...

It seems english keywords are not the only words that can be bid for at GoTo. There is some bidding going on for German keywords but very little from what I can tell.

Of course hardly anyone in Germany uses GoTo and as far as I'm aware I don't think GoTo are affiliated with any German SE. I just did a tad of research on the keyword "immobilien". This keyword gets queried 14,230 times a month from GoTo and has at the time of this post a bid for $0.03. The US equivalent("real estate") is currently bidding at $1.17 albeit for substantially more hits. Even so, it seems to make sense to me to bid for keywords in GoTo for 2 main reasons.

1. GoTo are likely to expand. They are now making a profit and will most likely want to consolidate with providing results for German engines before long.

2. You have nothing to lose. Payment is based on click throughs so if they dont click, you don't pay. At $0.03 a click I'd say you are getting an excellent "bang for your buck".

I think I'd give it a try as a real estate agent in Germany.

Just a thought and I'm interested in yours regarding the subject.

Webby

[bill]

I translated a bunch of my keywords into German, French and Spanish back when the $0.01 minimum was king...over the past two years I never got more than a handful of clicks.

[heini]

webby2001, welcome to WebmasterWorld again. As mentioned in my answer to your post in the european forum [webmasterworld.com] and concording with your comment, bill, Goto listings do not really show on the major german Ses. There is however movement in the pay-for-... scene in Germany. oLeon just speculated [webmasterworld.com] about Goto getting a huge let out, when t-online, german site No 1 will change to a new serchengine partner.

[markd]

Hello Webby

Can I ask - when you bid on your German keyphrases did you, or were you able to use, German accented or 'special characters' or did you just 'strip out' as they would not be 'ascii' characters?

Thanks and welcome to the Forum also.

[heini]

Mark
bidding on keywords with special characters is
possible with goto. In fact you can bid on both variants: including special characters and closest ascii version.
Example:
"Bücher" and "Buecher" (="books")
It´s very telling that "Bücher" gets higher bids than "Buecher". The vast majority of german searches will be for "Bücher".

[webby2001]

With reply to Markd.
Fortunately the 3 keywords I intend to bid on do not contain special characters. if they did, I wouldn't alter them to suit search machines however. As someone already pointed out, "bücher" is "bücher". No German would search for buecher. If GoTo accept the umelaut then thats what will get bid on.

There is big news to come from the German PPC scene so watch this space :-)

webby

[heini]

>There is big news to come from the German PPC scene

I guess you are right, Webby. The movement to pay PPC, PFI, Pay-for-whatever has already started.
May I invite you to share your insights with us in the Germany - Deutschland. Search engines thread [webmasterworld.com] - we can surely need some knowledgeable people helping us keeping track and filling gaps in our knowledge base. Would be nice to see you over there!