Media Centre: News Releases
Overture™
launches new accreditation scheme for search engine marketeers
January 14, 2003
Overture, the global leader in Pay-for-Performance search, on Thursday officially launched a UK SEM Accreditation Programme that aims to encourage best practice and bring transparency to the Pay Per Click (PPC) re-seller marketplace.
The programme has been designed to protect UK businesses against so-called ‘rogue re-sellers’ - companies who exploit a lack of understanding of the search marketplace. These practices include guaranteeing positions on search engines for a one off cost, selling exclusive rights to individual search terms and over-charging customers.
Overture’s programme will see a group of ‘best of breed’ SEMs with a history of ethical behaviour, receiving a seal of approval for display on their website.
This seal shows that the SEM has agreed to follow a set of best practice guidelines drawn up by Overture to protect against false claims or fraudulent reselling practices.
The guidelines include transparency on pricing and results and outline best campaign practices such as the use of deep-linking URLs and ensuring search terms appear in both the title and description.
Daniel Mohacek, from Overture believes the new programme will help companies select their SEMs because it will show “that a company follows best practice both in terms of pricing and campaign implementation. The scheme enables us to create an environment that encourages third parties to offer our advertisers the best possible levels of service.”
Edward Cowell, Technical Director of Neutralize (*\*), one of the few companies to receive this official ‘seal of approval’, is 100% behind the scheme. He said “it will result in many benefits to advertisers such as improved ROI , better campaign management through the whole click to sale lifecycle”
Edward goes on to suggest that “accredited SEM's will also bring much added value to a PPC campaign by covering all aspects of performance search engine marketing rather than just advert planning and placement, these could include site level traffic analysis and post sale tracking services, bid gap management and a host of extra services designed to improve campaign results.”
Companies wishing to use an accredited SEM can identify members of the scheme by Overtures official GIF Accreditation 'seal' which should be displayed on their websites, this ‘seal of approval’ will also be hyper linked to a page hosted on the Overture website which reiterates the best practice guidelines and 'authenticates' the seal.
About
Neutralize
Neutralize is one of the UK’s leading full service search
engine marketing agencies. An Overture Accredited
SEM (Search
Marketing Company), UK Premier Affiliate to Atlas OnePoint(GoToast)
and also a Contributor Member of SEMPO
(Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation)
http://www.sempo.org the global body
representing members of the search engine marketing industry. Clients
include the Houses of Parliament, Asserta Home, OCRA and the Eden Project.
Lotte Mahon
T. 0870 0630707
E.
U. http://www.neutralize.com
