Global Search Engine Marketing & Social Media News And Analysis » Belgium

European Interactive Advertising Association Report Dec. 2010

Sante J. Achille — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:47:35 +0000

The European Interactive Advertising Association has published the EIAA European Media Landscape Report Summary, December 2010.

The key findings of the report include:

521m 16+ year old people in the 15 European countries sampled
According to EIAA’s latest Mediascope Europe study 76% (396m) of all 16+ year old people across 15 European markets surveyed use different media simultaneously with almost a third (30%) using the internet whilst they watch TV
A third (33%) of Europeans cannot live without the internet, equal to the percentage of Europeans who claim they cannot live without TV
54% (279m) of Europeans use the internet in a typical week spending 12.1 hours online
16‐24 year olds use the internet more frequently than they watch TV – 79% of this younger demographic use the internet between 5 and 7 days each week while 76% watch TV as regularly
More than 8 in 10 (83%) online Europeans use a broadband connection and over half (52%) of these broadband users are wireless
The most popular web activities amongst all European internet users include;
- email (76%), communicating via social networking sites (45%)
- instant messaging (40%)
- watching film, TV or video clips (32%)
- contributing to ratings and reviews (27%)
71% state that as a result of the internet they are staying in touch with friends and relatives more, half (50%) have chosen better products or services and 47% are better able to manage their finances online
55% of European internet users actively change their mind on what brand to buy after online research

Other relevant information provided in the report:

51% access the Internet on a PC
14% access the Internet via a mobile device
43% watch or downloading films and video or stream TV
80% of the population in Norway Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands access the Internet at least once a week, with the European average fixed at an estimated 54%

Source: http://www.eiaa.net/

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Google expands new trademark policy – but sidesteps Europe

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:12:38 +0000

Following the expansion of their trademark policy to the UK last year, Google has widened its looser trademark policy which basically allows all-comers to bid on trademark keywords increasing the cost of trademark advertising via the number one search engine and allowing competitors to aggressively buy each others ‘marks. The new change expands the ‘we won’t intervene’ approach to a total of 190 countries. The change comes into force on June 4th.

However, Google has sidestepped the key European countries with the strongest legal rules and where cases have cost Google most in fines (see list below). From calculations, the removal of protection for trademarked terms increases advertiser costs by as much as 80% – as well as taking revenue from additional advertisers on those terms. The policy, therefore, enables Google to increase its adverising take from advertisers. The approach also affects major global brands most significantly – because they generally spend proportionately more on advertising their brands because it is those brands – and the associated products – which have made them global.

Google has long struggled to persuade blue chip advertisers to move more of their advertising budgets to Google Adwords – this is step which leaves them with no choice. However, it is a dangerous move as it could also contribute to tipping the ROI see-saw towards other newer forms of promotion such as social media and Twitter.

Having received no significant kick-back from its UK change of a year ago – it’s no surprise that this is being rolled out now. Probably, another year will pass before more countries – especially European ones – are added. I predict that France, where the courts have levied the largest fines against Google, will be the last to go.

So the following countries (European Union countries in bold) will not see the change – at least yet. Via Search Engine Land

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Cyprus
Denmark
Finland
France
Greece
Germany
Hungary
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden

Australia
Bahamas
Brazil
China
Iceland
Macau
New Zealand
Norway
South Korea
Switzerland
Taiwan

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Google to digitise 500,000 books in the ‘Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon’

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:03:58 +0000

Abondance brings us further news of the Google book publishing initiative which sees Lyon, France’s second most important city (sorry Marseilles), jumping the gun on Paris and cooperating with Google. The digitisation will involve those books which are out of copyright.

The library houses an important collection of books in the French language and some rare editions from authors such as Nostradamus and Newton. Not all of the books in the collection are in the French language as the Italian, Latin, English, German and Spanish languages also feature prominently. It is the second largest collection in France after the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.

Other libraries in Europe which are also involved in the project include Lausanne in Switzerland, and Ghent in Belgium.

For what it’s worth, Lyon is also a beautiful city – speaking as a former resident!

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24 European states go borderless under Schengen

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:54:49 +0000

The Schengen agreement has been extended from 15 countries to 24 giving a wider borderless Europe with no internal border controls or checks and an open market of over 400 million people. Coming into force on the 21st December, the Schengen agreement makes physical inter-trade between bordering countries easier to manage for marketers. As Europe opens its borders, and search grows quickly in Europe, Schengen makes European business roll-outs more attractive and achievable with faster distribution and lower border costs.

The new countries joining the agreement are:-

Czech Republic
Slovakia
Poland
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Malta
Slovenia

I decided to test this with a visit to the most northerly Balkan state of Slovenia travelling from Austria through a 5 mile tunnel to the south side of the Alps. True enough the European blue flag and stars had become the standard border crossing notification and the rows of kiosks and border controls were empty and unmanned as we headed to the capital Ljublana.

Ljubljana is a town of around 230,000 people with a pretty baroque style and attractive old quarter. The local search engine is “Najdi” and the local domain is .si.

The Schengen agreement was first signed by five countries in 1985 in a small Luxembourg town ‘Schengen’ – these original five were later joined by ten others and the agreement came into force in 1995. The agreement basically means that the internal borders between the treaty countries are removed – but that those same countries cooperate to strengthen the outer border using the Schengen Information System – a database where data is exchanged. There are also special rules on how police forces work together.

The original five countries were:-

France
Germany
Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg

Other countries which joined up to 1995 when Schengen was finally realised are:-

Spain
Portugal
Greece

Countries who joined after 1995 but before 1997 are:-

Italy
Austria
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Iceland
Monaco

The Schengen Agreement has only ever, in part, been deployed by the British or the Irish for fear of it encouraging immigration and terrorism – though it doesn’t seem to have helped much staying out.

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EURid suspends 10,000 .EU names squatted in China

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:14:09 +0000

The .EU domain registrar management organisation, EURid has suspended 10,000 EU domain names which have been apparently legally registered by a Chinese woman – reports out-law. EURid has the power to remove the domain names from the woman – but has said that it would prefer a court to do it.

According to reports, the woman was buying the names to sell on to other parties at higher prices – nothing new in that then. EURid says that is has received complaints – not particularly new either. One key point is that only European-based organisations are allowed to hold .EU domain names.

Out-law carries this great quote from EURid, “When we screen our data bank we see that some people have an amazing amount of names. Nobody needs 10,000 names.” Strange. You’d have thought that EURid had a little more knowledge and insight about the industry in which they operate. Perhaps that’s why there were so many complaints at launch!

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Google webmaster tools starts to think international

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:20:03 +0000

At least two major new features are arriving in Google’s webmaster tools console according to information from the SES San Jose conference and the official Google webmaster tools blog.

The latter has announced support for the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) and a series of further enhancements are expected. IDNA enables webmasters to use domain names which exist outside the original 26 characters used for the English-language – but not for too many other languages since many have odd accented characters. Additionally, this brings greater support for asiatic and arabic character sets.

The other new development which is currently being looked at, according to a senior Google source, is the addition of a tool within webmaster tools whereby you can specify the country your site relates to. The countries will be listed in a drop down list – and you’ll almost certainly only be able to choose once country per site.

For a long time it has been a problem if you site was a .com site with no history of activity in a country for Google to pick out the right ‘bucket’ in which to list your site. For some this was an embarrasment – for others a major business hurdle. Matters were worse for those .coms hosted in a country other than the one they were targeting – perhaps for business political or content management system reasons. The result was you might be targeting France with a site hosted in Norway – but not end up appearing in the ‘Pages Francophones’ of Google.fr – even if the language of the site was French.

The simplest way of solving this problem has always been to have local country domains in which case – contrary to what one SES panelist advised in San Jose, the hosting location becomes irrelevant. For many, this isn’t practical – hence the reason why some have chosen to host locally to get around the problem.

These two developments combined will help international SEO specialists manage their projects with less frustration!

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Google to open data centre in French-speaking Belgium

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:39:49 +0000

Belgium newspaper – Le Soir – has revealed that Google is to open a new 120-person data centre in the French-speaking part of Belgium (known as Wallonie in Belgium) near a town called Ghlin-Baudour (See map) covering a site of 85 hectares or 210 acres of land. The 120 people are required for management, data management, maintenance and security according to Google, says Le Soir.

Construction begins in the Summer and will take until 2008 and the site will use the nearby canal for water cooling of the computer hardware. The site also benefits from access to a fibre optic network and the total invesment will exceed 250 million Euros.

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European telecoms operators threaten US search hegemony

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:51:32 +0000

The UK’sTelegraph online reports that 12 of Europe’s largest telecoms operators – with one American firm – are planning to launch a mobile phone search engine to rival Google and Yahoo.

The companies concerned include Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and US firm Cingular. Combined, they have a user base of 600 million people – with some 20% in the UK expected to have broadband speed mobile phone access by the end of 2007.

According to The Telegraph, declining mobile phone revenues are forcing telecoms operators to look at all angles – and the lucrative search advertising market is clearly attractive. For telecoms operators it is very appealing to keep a larger percentage of the revenues rather than ’sharing’ with Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.

However, both Google and Yahoo have already done deals with mobile phone operators and it is not clear what impact this will have!

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Blogs influence European consumers

Sante J. Achille — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:40:54 +0000

A recent NYT: A court ordered Google to remove on Monday all links to French- and German-language newspaper reports published in Belgium after an association of local publishers won a case that accused the company of violating the country’s copyright laws.

The legal action is the most recent example of the news media’s challenging the growing power of internet news portals run by the large search engines. Increasingly, people are obtaining their news in bite-size nuggets on search engines, and advertising revenue for newspapers is diminishing as a result.

Copiepresse, an organisation that helps enforce the copyrights of some of Belgium’s best-known newspapers, including Le Soir and Le Libre Belgique, sued Google for publishing summaries of articles in the newspapers along with a link to the web sites of the newspapers.

In the meantime, there are no results of the newspapers any more in Google. Sweet revenge?

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Acoona launches European version of its search engine

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:48:14 +0000

Accoona has launched its search engine into the European zone – in fact western Europe. The search engine – which is on a .eu at www.accoona.eu searches by language – rather than country. Currently, the EU version runs in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

Following the search you have the option to refine your search by geography, person, company, language or publisher.

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Europe studies the Web 2.0 phenomenon with TAGora

Sante J. Achille — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:52:57 +0000

TAGora is a Research Project funded by the European Union. The TAGora project aims at exploiting the unique opportunities offered by the increasing popularity of computer-mediated social interaction and social networks.

The project will develop along several lines:

A systematic and rigorous data collection campaign that will produce reference datasets and make them available to the scientific community at large.
The design and implementation of innovative techniques and tools for the analysis and mining of data.
The construction and validation of modeling schemes for the observed phenomenology, involving the comparison of experimental data, simulation and theoretical constructions.
The design and deployment of innovative, proof-of-concept tools aimed at better structuring and navigating information.

The kick off meeting was held on July 14th. The evolution of the project can be followed via the blog.

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France announces that ‘Quaero’ is behind schedule – due to launch in 2011

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 10:57:36 +0000

Abondance tells us that the Agence pour l’innovation industrielle (Industrial Innovation Agency) gave an update this week on progress with regard to 6 of its projects including the European search engine project ‘Quaero’. The project has a budget of 250 million Euros through 5 years and the AII’s press conference gave no new information of any significance – apart from a signifcant delay in progress and the fact that the new tool will bring together existing technologies.

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French reject .EU domains as Cypriot registrations beat the French

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:56:32 +0000

French registrations of .EU domains show a clear rejection of the name by the French. After 24 hours, the French have only registered one fifth the number of domains (48,000) that the British have registered (260,000) – even though proportionately the countries are virtually the same size. But French registrations at are also significantly behind Germany (370,000), Italy (78,000), the Netherlands (145,000), Sweden (60,000) and registrations from Cyprus (73,000).

In the first day of trading in .Eu domain names, over 1.2 million active names were registered through the 1,000 accredited registrars according to EURid live statistics.

The UK lead in the first four hours – says EURid – however Germany soon overtook the UK.
Marc van Wesemael, Managing Director of EURid has expressed satisfaction at the progress saying, “We are satisfied to see that the interest in .eu has been so large and that many already regard .eu as a useful complement to Internet’s national top level domain names”.

Could President Chirac have had some influence over this? Will the French catch up later? We’re taking no bets.

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Rush for .EU begins “most important top level domain ever”

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:26:14 +0000

The BBC reports on the opening of the doors of EurID to allcomers trying to register one of the valuable .EU domains – now on a first come first served basis. Already 300,000 have used the sunrise period to register a domain where a previous claim existed – such as a trademark or trading history.

Markus Eggensperger of Lycos claims that “It’s the most important top level domain we have ever seen,” and “Eventually the .EU could rival the .com”.

As we say in the UK, that’s probably “poppycock” but then you never know. Still noone can say how .EUs will affect search engine rankings as the use of .fr or .de has been a very easy way to identify the country of a particular site.

Go and get you .Eu – but don’t switchover today!

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UK behind Germany, France and the Netherlands on .eu applications

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 15:35:17 +0000

The number of applications for .eu domain names seems to be somewhat tardy in the UK, according to the current figures from Eurid – where Germany – not surprisingly – is way in the lead with 81,000 applications, followed by the Netherlands with 44,000, France at 29,000 and the UK trailing the leading group with just 24,000.

France has a population similar to the UK and the Netherlands is much smaller than the UK so the UK is clearly underrepresented. Could it be that UK companies are not getting their act together and going to be caught out with other companies buying their domain names – or are the Brits simply not interested in Europe?

Whatever the case, time is rapidly running out for the .eu sunrise period and organisations would do well to check they are properly listed in the queue for their own domains. The period after 7th April is appropriately called the land rush period. Who will be caught in the rush….?

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Free .be domain names for Belgium as registry opens the doors

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 17:43:34 +0000

The Belgian domain registry is promoting use of the .be domain by offering free registration until the 31st January. The domains are available on a first come first served basis and the registration systems are open now. Whilst there have already been some problems with server loadings, particularly for the WHOIS checks, the system is now functioning. Multilingual Search Editor – Russia, Nick Wilsdon, is one of the leading .be registries offering the service.
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Belgium is right at the heart of Europe. With a mix of French and Dutch speakers they border the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France. There are no barriers to ownership of the .be domain; registrants can be from any country. If you are new to multilingual marketing, this offer represents a unique opportunity to experiment. It is possible to target Belgium, the Netherlands and France using the .be suffix – so it can be a very effective route to market. The offer is limited to 10 domains per person and will end on the 31st of January 2006.

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Mirago opens its Swedish pay per click engine to advertisers

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:11:03 +0000

Mirago chose to launch its new advertising network in Sweden at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Stockholm where the first advertisers were formally signed up to advertise. Mirago is a UK-based pay per click search engine and has been building indexes throughout Europe over the last months.

Advertisers targeting Sweden now have access to the pay per click services as well as index paid inclusion and other premium services.

Mike James, European Business Development Manager explained, “We’re rolling out the network throughout Europe but chose Sweden as one of our earlier destinations because it is a well developed market, broadband access is high and the Swedes are used to buying online. But we aim to cover all markets in Europe and will be launching in Italy in the next couple of weeks.”

Mirago has already built indexes in the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Spain. The company expects to launch advertising facilities soon in all of those countries but has already opened in the UK, France, Germany and now Sweden. Italy will be next followed by Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway.

Mike James also explained that unlike Google, Mirago has built separate indexes for each country identifying sites using such factors as local domain names and other features which he wasn’t at liberty to reveal. Interestingly, he highlighted the fact that the company has built different methods of ‘normalising’ its results pages to deal with different language demands. “Swedish is different to French because it has full characters rather than accented characters which have to be treated in a different way,” he explained. “There is no danger of polluted results between the very similar languages of Scandinavia such as Danish and Norwegien because we have built separate indexes”.

Mirago has 15,000 active campaigns, handles 1/2 billion enquiries per month and has 700 partner sites which feed Mirago results – and it is actively talking to potential new partners in Sweden.

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Berlin: Travelocity says travel consolidation will cut search engine revenues

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 07:50:54 +0000

Speaking at the eyefortravel Sales and Marketing in Travel Europe conference in Berlin, Jan Oetjen, Travelocity’s managing director Germany, said that the search engine revenues would be cut following the likely consolidation in the travel industry. “We all know that travel is a major buyer for the search engines, consolidation would bring down the costs which travel companies pay.”

He expected more consolidation – but said that this depended on whether the industry “commoditised or personalised” its approach.

Speakers at the conference expressed the view that the search engines have become the new travel distribution system virtually replacing the dedicated GDS system.

Meanwhile, Expedia Europe director, Bruce Redor, attacked the meta-travel search engines. “I believe they bring greater choice,” he said but went on to heavily criticise the approach largely basing his argument on the fact that the travel inventory companies would not be able to cope with the scale of response needed. “Expedia handles 1,000 requests a second,” he said, “And that’s just for the flight path queries”.

Navneet Bali, formerly from e-bookers, is developing a new travel search engine or meta search tool in India under the brand Allcheckin.com. He believes that such travel search engines offer transparency and that customers are looking for that.

Google’s vertical market manager – travel UK – Daniel Robb – revealed that Google has undertaken a major pan-European study of travel search and will be releasing its findings in events throughout Europe in the next few weeks. For the UK, he said that 93% of travel searchers use Google, 34% Yahoo and 18% MSN. The study was principally based on existing Google users and demonstrates a multiple use of the engines.

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25% of Belgian companies may switch to .EU domain

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 07:02:04 +0000

Proximedia of Belgium is predicting that 25% of Belgian companies are likely to switch to using a .be domain name.

European businesses abuzz over ‘.eu’ domain names – INQ7.net

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