SEARCH CLINIC

Google is profiting from ads for illegal products generated by its pay per click advertising system.The ads include unofficial London 2012 Olympics ticket resellers, as well as cannabis and fake ID card sellers.

Google has since taken down links to illegal Olympic ticket resellers following requests from the police.

But the search engine confirms that the company keeps any money it might make from companies advertising illegal services before such adverts are removed.

Selling tickets on the open market without permission from the Olympic authorities is a criminal offence in the UK under the London Olympic and Paralympic Games Act 2006.

The maximum penalty fine for reselling Olympic tickets without authorisation from the Olympic authorities was raised last year from £5,000 to £20,000.

Despite this, Google has placed adverts for unofficial ticket resellers which are breaking the law by selling London 2012 tickets to customers in the UK.

But research found other sponsored Google adverts – for online cannabis sellers, fake ID cards, and fake UK passports.

Google’s Pay Per Click AdWords advertising system is partly automated and this helps make the initial selection of the advertisements which appear at the top of its search results.

Google’s AdWords does filter key words that can help sift out adverts which might be offering unlawful services.

If a filter flags an advert, then Google will run a manual assessment – a human takes a look – and if it breaks Google’s policy, the advert will be taken down.

In a statement, Google said: “We have a set of policies covering which ads can and cannot show on Google. These policies and guidelines are enforced by both automated systems and human beings.

“When we are informed of ads which break our policies, we investigate and remove them if appropriate. Our aim is to create a simple and efficient way for legitimate businesses to promote and sell their goods and services whilst protecting them and consumers from illicit activity.”

However, dubious online retailers are still finding their way to the top of the advert results and can do so by paying a higher cost per click than other advertisers.

Google says the quality of ads also plays a role in the ranking advertisers achieve, as well as the price the advertiser is willing to pay.

Google’s sponsored links have proved costly in the past and, in August, Google agreed to forfeit £324 million ($500 million) for publishing online adverts from Canadian pharmacies selling illegal drugs to US customers.

Dr Search- the Search Clinic’s Principal Consultant has now been recognised by the Association of MBAs as a qualified Member.
The Association of MBAs is the international impartial authority on postgraduate business education and was established in 1967.

AMBA is the only professional membership association for MBA students and graduates, accredited business schools, and MBA employers. The membership network currently includes 9,000 members living in 88 countries.

The accreditation service is the global standard for all MBA, DBA and MBM programmes. They currently accredit programmes at 189 business schools in over 70 different countries.

In June 1967, a small group of business graduates, eight with MBAs from the US and two from the first intake at London Business School, gathered in London to found the Business Graduates Association (BGA).

Recognising that despite the value of the MBA, there was a distinct lack of knowledge about the qualification in the UK and Europe, the BGA’s intention was to promote the benefits of business education through five key objectives: help the development of existing business schools, support the founding of new business schools, encourage employers to take on MBAs, help increase the number and quality of students attending business school, and advocate the importance of professional business education in general.

By the end of their first decade the BGA had grown to a membership of 1,900.

In 1983, in response to the growing number of polytechnic business schools offering an MBA programme, the BGA established an accreditation programme to champion the MBA as a brand and to ensure standards were maintained. It soon became clear that there was considerable demand for this kind of quality assurance in the MBA market.

By 1987 the BGA’s stakeholder group had evolved into graduate members, accredited business schools and MBA employers. To reflect this change the BGA became the Association of MBAs.

Throughout the 1990s, the Association of MBAs continued to grow, adding members and accrediting programmes, including many outside the UK. The Association, until then staffed by volunteers, also adopted a more professional structure, adopting a full-time head and management team.

Jeanette Purcell came on board as Chief Executive in 2003. In 2007, the Association of MBAs celebrated its 40th anniversary as the leading international impartial authority on postgraduate business education.

You can contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Search Clinic wishes you a prosperous New Year.Search Clinic wishes you a prosperous New Year in 2012.

It’s been a very busy year with growing use of the internet to boost businesses’ ecommerce activities.

And lots of new marketing initiatives from technology companies to develop their investments.

Onwards and upwards into 2012!

Transactions were affected at the Post Office network on Monday as computer issues caused problems on one of the busiest days of the year.Some transactions were affected for two 30-minute periods, leading to queues.

The Post Office apologised, saying that the service had now been restored across the UK network of 11,800 branches.

The problem came as Royal Mail’s website continued to suffer from a computer glitch.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience this problem has caused customers. We know how important the Post Office is to our customers at all times, but especially at Christmas,” said Kevin Gilliland, the Post Office’s network and sales director.

This is the second computer problem at the network in six months. In July, a shutdown blocked access for 3.3 million customers with Post Office card accounts.

Some pensioners have their benefits paid into a Post Office card account.

A Post Office spokesman said the glitch affected most services offered by the branches which were hit.

Post offices were expected to be particularly busy, because Royal Mail was predicting its busiest day of the year.

They were expecting 131 million items to be posted, double the usual number. They had taken on thousands of extra staff to cope with the Christmas rush, caused in part by the popularity of online shopping.

Last week, Royal Mail admitted that it had charged some customers twice for postal services as problems continue to hit its website.

Some 600 customers had cards debited twice, at an average of £50 each time, after repeating a purchase in the SmartStamp section which the system told them had initially failed. Various online postage applications – such as Price Finder – have also been down since 21 November.

A Post Office spokesman said the issues affecting Royal Mail were unrelated to the problems at the Post Office network on Monday.

Chancellor George Osborne announced £5 billion of spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and broadband networks with £100 million of that is set to boost broadband coverage in London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff.A further six cities will be identified later.

“For the first time we are identifying over 500 infrastructure projects we want to see built over the next decade and beyond. Roads, railways, airport capacity, power stations, waste facilities, broadband networks,” the chancellor told the House of Commons.

“It means creating new superfast digital networks for companies across our country. These do not exist today. See what countries like China or Brazil are building, and you’ll also see why we risk falling behind the rest of the world,” he said.

“Our great cities are at the heart of our regional economies. And we will help bring world leading, superfast broadband and wi-fi connections to 10 of them – including the capitals of all four nations.

The plan is to create a hub of super-fast cities with broadband speeds of between 80 to 100Mbps (megabits per second) and city-wide high-speed mobile connectivity.

The current average broadband speed in the UK is 6.8Mbps.

Firms including BT and Virgin will be able to bid for the money, which they can use to fill in urban notspots or increase wi-fi coverage, a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said.

The government wants the UK to be the best place for broadband in Europe by 2015.

BT recently accelerated its superfast broadband rollout and now plans to offer fibre services to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

Virgin Media has also turned up the speed dial on its services, which is available to half the homes in the UK.

Broadband rollouts in rural areas have been far slower with critics complaining that the £530m set aside by the government to encourage investment in these areas is insufficient.

Much of that money has been allocated to local councils identified as having broadband blackspots but few have yet got projects up and running.

As more people are preferring to search online for a partner than in a bar or club, the web dating business is worth more than £2 billion a year worldwide and niche targeting is helping businesses meet customer needs.One of the fastest growing online dating companies is Global Personals, based in Windsor, which was set up eight years ago.

It currently employs 100 staff and has 14 websites including Just Widower Dating and Just Divorced Singles which cater for very specific markets.

But 85% of Global Personals’ income is from selling software for other people to host their own rebranded sites – known as “white label” sites.

“We provide the technology, customer care and database for other brands to put their label on it and market it to consumers,” says founder Ross Williams.

The service is used by individuals who want to set up a dating business and also by several media companies for their linked dating sites like FHM, Bizarre and Maxim magazines. In total it hosts 6,000 white label sites.

Another specialist target is the Asian market, where sites such as Shaadi.com appeal to people who are more interested in settling down than dating.

The Mumbai-based company claims to have fixed more than two million weddings worldwide since it opened 15 years ago.

The site uses the same search criteria that families would use when trying to arrange a marriage in the traditional way but does everything online.

UK shoppers are buying more online products and services and at a faster pace than many other countries- a survey of global shopping habits by KPMG has found.Seventy seven per cent of British shoppers prefer to buy goods like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online – compared with 65% globally.

But when it comes to mobile banking, consumers in the UK are more reluctant than those in other parts of the world.

KPMG surveyed 9,600 consumers aged between 16 and 65, across 31 countries.

When buying goods or services, the majority of customers (both in the UK and globally) now said that they look at social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and online review sites.

“From buying goods on their mobile phones to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers are increasingly reliant on a range of technologies that perform important – yet often overlapping – tasks,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s European head of technology.

“This new ‘converged lifestyle’ will have huge implication for retailers.”

Eighty eight per cent of respondents in the UK and worldwide reported downloading an app to their mobile.

In the UK, 74% of consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and holidays online and six in 10 used some form of online grocery shopping.

In the US, by contrast, the same amount would book flights but only 21% said they were more likely to buy groceries online.

But when it comes to mobile banking, only 27% in the UK said they had used some form of mobile banking in the past six months.

That compares with 52% globally – a massive jump from just under 20% in 2008, according to the audit firm.

Consumers in the UK are also more reluctant to embrace the cloud – storing their data online rather than on their own computers – with 53% of respondents saying they do some compared with 65% globally.

“The report also shows that consumers’ concerns over privacy and data security have increased over the last few years and companies across all sectors need to take this concern seriously,” Mr Aw said.

Online sales rose faster than expected in the US on Black Friday, according to surveys- with more expected next week.Internet sales totalled £524 million ($816 million), a 26% gain on last year, said Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is treated by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They offer one-off discounts to mark the occasion.

Analysts said heavy promotional activity helped drive demand.

By comparison, a report by Shoppertrak suggested that in-store Black Friday sales were up by 7% on last year, at £7.12 billion ($11.4 billion).

Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, according to Comscore.

It said Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.

Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company.

“Despite some analysts’ predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce,” said Comscore’s chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

IBM Coremetrics also noted a trend towards shopping on smartphones and tablet computers.

It said Black Friday purchases made on mobile devices had accounted for 9.8% of all online sales, compared with 3.2% last year.

IBM described mobile shoppers as having had a “laser focus” since they had been more likely to view a single page on a retailer’s site rather than browse what else was for sale.

IBM said Apple’s iPhone and iPad had generated the most mobile internet visits to online stores, accounting for more than double the traffic originating from devices running Google’s Android system.

The company also noted a jump in Black Friday related chatter on social networks. It recorded a 110% rise in discussion volumes after consumers had shared tips on how to secure products before they sold out and the best places to park.

Friday’s internet sales are expected to be eclipsed today on what is referred to as Cyber Monday – which many experts believe will be the US’s busiest online shopping day of the year.

Close to 123 million Americans plan to make an online purchase according to a survey commissioned by the US National Retail Federation, an industry lobby group. That would be a 15% increase on last year.

NRF said nearly eight in ten online retailers would run special promotions including “flash sales that last an hour” and “free shipping offers”.

The federation also highlighted the shift to mobile devices, saying it expected 17.8 million Americans to use them to shop today, nearly five times the number in 2009.

“Retailers have invested heavily in mobile apps and related content as the appetite for Cyber Monday shopping through smartphones and tablets continues to rise,” said Vicki Cantrell, executive director of the NRF’s website shop.org.

UK internet retailers said it was less clear which day will be the UK’s busiest online shopping day this year.

“Over the last couple of years we have seen a fortnight of peak activity over the period corresponding to both this and next week,” said Andy Mulcahy, a spokesman for the industry body Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

“We expect £3.72bn will be spent online over the two week period.”

Mr Mulcahy said that although some retailers are trying to generate interest in the idea of a cyber event in the UK, but they are split over which day to mark.

Visa Europe said it believed today will be the UK’s busiest internet shopping day, with £303m spent online.

eBay has forecast that it would experience its peak in activity this Sunday with more than 5.5 million people expected to log onto the UK version of its auction website.

Amazon said it expected to experience more demand the following day.

“In recent years, the first Monday in December has been Amazon.co.uk’s busiest day with orders for over 2.3 million items being placed on Monday 6th December last year,” said Christopher North, the website’s managing director.

As it’s now December and people are opening the first windows on their Advent calendars Dr Search thought we would give you some insights for the Twelve Days of Christmas 2011 online. The 12 Insights of Christmas 2011

1. This December 350 million hours will be spent shopping online by the UK Internet population. This translates to an average of 8 hours and 45 minutes spent per person on shopping websites over the course of the month.

2. 2.1 billion visits will go to online retail sites in December with new record peaks in traffic both pre and post-Christmas.

3. Lego will be the most searched for toy this Christmas, in particular Lego Star Wars games and sets.

4. Cyber Monday (5 December) will be the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day online with 85 million visits to retail websites from UK Internet users.

5. Monday 19 December will be the biggest day of December for online Grocery visits as people do some last minute food shopping but also check store opening times across the Christmas period.

6. iPhones will be a third more popular online than iPads this Christmas. If search intent was reflected in sales, for every 3 iPads Apple sold this Christmas they would sell 4 iPhones.

7. Facebook will see a new peak in UK Internet visits as friends share messages of good will with one another. 25 million hours will be spent on Facebook on Christmas Day alone.

8. Searches for the post-Christmas sales will start earlier than ever this year, with eager shoppers starting to do their research online as early as Christmas Eve.

9. Friday 23 December will be the biggest day of December for retailers receiving traffic from email as the multi-channel retailers prepare their customers for the post-Christmas sales.

10. The fashion sector will be the most reliant on Facebook traffic this Christmas, with TopShop, River Island and ASOS among the biggest recipients of Facebook traffic.

11. 12 million hours will be spent watching video clips on BBC iPlayer this Christmas with the biggest driver of traffic being the Dr Who Christmas special.

12. Hull will be the online shopping capital of Britain of December 2011, with proportionally more people doing their Christmas shopping online than any other city in the UK.

These twelve days of christmas online insights were initially research by Hitwise.

LinkedIn now has over 120 million users worldwide, including six million in the UK. Two new members join every second and there are nearly one million groups on the site.

It is now the mainstream tool for professionals to network online – and that is why it can’t be ignored as a marketing tool.

An increasing number of businesses are promoting their brands through staff profiles and presence on LinkedIn.

However, making the most of the social media website is a science- as with all social media websites information and security are key issues.

Here are some hot tips on how you can market your business successfully through Linkedin:

• Tell a compelling and authentic story about who you are, how you got to where you are, what you do and why you enjoy it. It is critical that a profile is “personally professional”. Individual profiles that only talk about the company or brand are a big turn off. Encourage your staff to take the same approach.
• Join relevant discussion groups and get involved in them. This can be interesting and rewarding and helps to raise your company’s profile.
• Make sure that your profile and all employees’ profiles link directly to your company page. An individual’s profile should also include information about your company, its products and offerings.
• Ensure you have a comprehensive company page including detailed pages on all products and services.
• Ask for and publish recommendations from satisfied customers for your products and services section on your company page.
• Ensure staff have profiles that are 100 per cent complete. LinkedIn is not like Facebook – individuals are representing a company or brand in a professional capacity on LinkedIn. The more visible your staff are on this network, the greater the visibility of your brand. But this only works if your employees are actively using their LinkedIn account.
• Encourage employees to use blogs, PowerPoint presentations and videos promoting your brand in their profiles and help them with the material.
• Provide guidelines on how to effectively communicate, reminding staff that their activities are representing the company- and can be read my literally millions of people- including your competitors.
• Provide all staff with copy to use to describe your company within their profiles. This ensures a consistent approach and helps avoid disclosing commercially sensitive information to competitors.
• Start your own group to build a community where you can indirectly promote your brand.
• Remember that search engine optimisation is important for every article, profle and group. LinkedIn allows open profiles which means that the search negine will alos pick up on your activities.