[media.guardian.co.uk...]
Just 48 hours before Lord Hutton delivers his verdict on the controversy surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the BBC has begun an advertising experiment that involves buying up all internet search terms relating to the inquiry.Despite being one of the main players in the drama, anyone searching for "Hutton inquiry" or "Hutton report" on the UK's most popular search engine Google is automatically directed to a paid-for link to BBC Online's own news coverage of the inquiry.
Cant see the adwords either...
This wont
I suspect it's something on his machine, BBC is the first result for Hutton report all right, but nothing unusual there.
Can't see any AdWords either.
I thought it was a bit strange the BBC using AdWords.
All I see is that BBC tops for "Hutton report" trumping 6x Guardian pages, almost pushing them off my 800x600. "Hutton inquiry" is a Hutton's main site + Guardian then BBC.
I don't see any Adwords.. yet. Maybe there planned for the next few days IF beeb has paid for Adwords.
Sour grapes leading to confusion maybe.
As an expat of britain I have to say I am very surprised that the BBC would do such a move and that the british public allow it.
I mean we have to pay every year a TV licence even if you don't watch the BBC. Now the BBC expects to spend money like this instead of good reporting to attract visitors.
Hutton Inquiry will be all this week I expect we will see something tomorrow on google.co.uk.
But surely if they just feed more news regulary they will increase their ranking? I don't see what extra traffic they will get.
The article above seems to be written by someone who understands neither search engines or the pay per click system.
From what I gather, it basically just means that the BBC is going to use Adwords to get extra traffic to their site, including terms based around the high-profile Hutton enquiry.
>>buying up all internet search terms relating to the inquiry.
>>automatically directed to a paid-for link to BBC Online's own news coverage of the inquiry
is simply nonsense...
[edited by: pixel_juice at 1:39 pm (utc) on Jan. 26, 2004]
They advertise in other media, why not for individual articles or topics.
Competion between them and CNN is so fierce if it gives the BBC an advantage good for them!
To me, it isn't so much a question of whether this will get the beeb more exposure (and from where I'm sitting they seem to have most uk news terms already covered) but whether the choice of paying for traffic using public funding is a good one.
CNN also stands to recover some of their expenditure through on-site advertising etc. which is not applicable in the BBC's case.
And finally, as a license payer it seems rather curious that I will be paying for my own clickthrough, to a site I already fund...
BBC World carries and sells advertising aggresively.
I'll be whining about tax next ;)
That said, as far as I am aware the license fee does cover the site, and also the Adword that I saw clicked through to an ordinary news article, if I remember correctly.
Competion between them and CNN is so fierce if it gives the BBC an advantage good for them!
The BBC has it far too easy, comparing the business of the BBC to CNN is very difficult.
BBC is funded by the British People where CNN is funded by business investments and advertising.
All BBC public services are available to everyone, free of adverts and independent of commercial or political interests. Other services are not financed by the licence fee, including BBC World Service. Profits from separate commercial BBC activities keep the licence fee down.
[bbc.co.uk...]
Why are they paying Adwords when they can't generate money from advertising on their own site?
Or does the BBC web site fall into the area where they can place advertisements?
Profits from separate commercial BBC activities keep the licence fee down
I have to laugh at the comment
"or political interests"
BBC v British Government.
:)
Certainly, advertising merchandise would make far more sense to me than links to news articles.
The writer intimates that just searching on Google for the terms 'Hutton inquiry/Hutton report' will have you automatically redirected to the relevant pages on the Beeb. This, of course, is not so.
At the time of writing, 5pm in London, no adwords can be seen. Perhaps they do not exist - and never did.
The claims that the BBC could prepare to launch adwords within 15 minutes is surely a lie. The BBC has no adwords and never has had. Adword inspectors have been given free reign to examine Beeb buildings in central London, and at Wood Lane, and Hans Clix - chief adwords inspector - confirms, that, as far as they are concerned, the BBC is not a threat to Google users in the free world.
And anyway, if they did have any adwords the Americans would have supplied them in the first place...
Interestingly enough, about a year ago on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme (which is at the centre of the entire Hutton scandal), Tony Benn claimed that the BBC was itself a 'WMD'.
In this instance he declared that the BBC was "...a weapon of mass deception."
Syzygy
As I mentioned above, I saw, and clicked on, an adword for the bbc a few days ago.
[slashdot.org...]
maybe they need a hand setting up an adwords account.
just a load of smoke, but no fire.
Shak
I see another site has been smart enough, and is bidding on the Hutton inquiry and related keywords, still NO bbc though :)
still NO bbc though
Perhaps they are got inside information of the out come and didn't want to pay to advertise their own humiliation.
So Mr Blair is cleared so is MI5 and the BBC chairman resigns!
I see another site has been smart enough, and is bidding on the Hutton inquiry
And getting surprisingly high click throughs! The BBC should have placed their ads.
Col
