Google allowing bids on Brand Keywords

[MarkGravity]

Google is now allowing ppc advertising when a searcher looks for brand keywords or types an exact url of a site into the search box. This new change will significantly increase the costs for large advertisers who have built their brands. This is a profit motivated move, that will hurt long term growth and expansions of advertiser's campaigns and only serves google's interest. This is very short sighted and I believe will have a large PR backlash.

[ltifwwc]

This has been like that for a long time here in the US. Are you talking about outside the US?

[poster_boy]

Mark is right... this is a new change. (Good catch!)

A search for a specific URL didn't used to net search ads on Google.com in the US (or on each Google foreign domain), only on syndication partners. Now, it does.