Wimax - Google It - from Imagine

It's interesting to see Imagine's new billboard ads for "WiMax", in which consumers are invited to Google "Wimax" to learn more, rather than giving a URL, as is the way in probably 99.99% of cases. This makes sense from the point of view that most newbies (to the web) don't even know what an address bar or address URL is - and use Google search to find sites they already know of.

WiMax is a huge term and Imagine don't rank it for organically. Instead, Wikipedia, Intel and Wimax.com are listed on the home page, so ranking for it is quite hard. So Imagine are using an AdWords campaign to make sure they come up. I find this understandable but its given me something to think about.

It's an interesting phenomenon. Some of clients even have to use AdWords with their own brandname to prevent competitors from outbidding them with their domain name. Google AdWords has this this facility, which I find a bit odd, whereby I can advertise one URL but visitors are sent to an entirely different name.

For example, I could have an ad that lists the URL as "imagine.ie/wimax" but users are actually forwarded to, say, "eircom.net". This is obviously hugely devious and underhanded but for whatever reason, Google not only allows it, it also allows you to remove your competitors listing by using their domain publicly and your domain as the real destination - as long as you're willing to pay more for it.

You would think Imagine would try to rank for it, even from "Pages from Ireland" but clearly paying for each visit they plan to get via their national advertising campaign seems more logical, for some reason....