Following Google’s trademark changes, the top online brands increased their spending on paid search for key brand terms in order to avoid losing search traffic to competitors and affiliates

Hitwise figures show that the top online brands in the UK have significantly increased their spending on paid brand search marketing following the changes to Google’s trademark policy on May 5.

According to Hitwise figures in the four weeks before Google’s changes took effect, 9.2% of the search traffic that the top 100 online brands in the UK received from their top brand term came via a paid listing on a search engine. However this figure went up to 11.2% - equivalent to an increase of 22% - during the first four weeks after the changes took effect.

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Interesting. This trend will probably continue for years to come as almost everyone in Europe and the US are using the net for shopping now a days. I think I spend just as much on Under $100 items online then I do offline, if you take food out of the equation.