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Ambergreen co-founder hits out at Google's U-turn on UK gambling ads ban

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

October 20, 2008 | 4 min read

The co-founder and technical director of SEO specialist Ambergreen, Grant Whiteside has hit out at the decision by Google to lift its restrictions on gambling ads in the UK.

Google has decided to now run adverts promoting gambling related advertising to appear against search results aimed at UK users.

The restrictions were lifted on Friday 17 October and it is thought could generate over £100million in revenue for the company.

Whiteside said that the results could see the landscape become like the ‘Wild West’ without any brand protection in place.

Whiteside said: "This news will spark a colossal scramble for positions by all the big brands and the sector will again become the most competitive area online. The next few days will be an interesting time for market share and costs are likely to quickly spiral out of control.”

He continued: "When paid search was first banned for gambling, analytics was in its infancy. Analytics has moved on big time since then and sanity will now prevail. There will be far more rigour directed towards costs and the market will curb excessive spending.

"It will be the companies that have spent time on sustaining their natural search positions that will emerge with the best positions once they are able to integrate natural with paid search.”

Whiteside went onto say that he believed the decision had been made ‘to keep the shareholders happy’ in a difficult financial climate.

“With the finance companies spending less as a result of turmoil in the market, revenues need to be generated. And as soon as the US election is out of the way I can see this u-turn by Google hitting stateside. What does this mean for the consumer? Just as when bingo came to the UK there are likely to be more incentives for consumers."

Meanwhile, the decision, which overturns the search giant’s policy of refusing to carry AdWords advertisements for gambling operations such as online bingo and casino sites, has been cautioously welcomed by fellow SEO specialists Bigmouthmedia.

In addition to opening up a new keywords bidding war, Bigmouthmedia points out that the move could also have a substantial impact on Yahoo. The search engine has until now profited from the PPC revenue from gambling advertisers barred from using Google, but with the field now open stands to loose a considerable chunk of its turnover.

"This is another sudden change that has taken most of the sector by surprise. It will certainly lead to a big switch in the way that advertisers and agencies manage search campaigns for gambling sector clients and opens up a potentially lucrative new vertical for the industry,” said Lyndsay Menzies, managing director of bigmouthmedia UK.

"While many will welcome the addition of a new and highly competitive advertising platform for gambling advertisers, it remains to be seen what impact the move will have on other services. Competition is good for business, and it would be a great shame if this were to further weaken Yahoo’s hold on the market.”

When it first introduced the ban 16 months ago, Google was heavily criticised by gaming and gambling companies for not providing them with evidence that its users wanted the ban. The company, which claims that the change has been under review for some time, says that it consulted the Gambling Commission prior to changing its policy.

Last year, the ban on advertising gambling in the UK was lifted through the introduction of the Governments Gambling Act which removed the prohibition on television ads for casino and bingo gaming.

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