Comments on: Pontiac plugs Google instead of own site

By: MOJO

MOJO — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:15:22 +0000

Wow, thanks for the excellent information!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 18:14:59 +0000

I do website optimization and you would not believe most people don’t know what the URL bar is for. They always go to Google, Yahoo or MSN and type in the url there. Or it they use IE they type in a keyword and IE defaults to a MSN search.

It is dangerous as a few bad public comments on a high profile site will kill them

I posted a negative comment about a company once and it came up in Google third. Their website was fifth. They emailed me and told me if I didn’t remove my comment they’d sue me. I told them, go ahead. They never did and the comment stands. These companies think a high priced lawyer will scare anyone.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:57:32 +0000

It’s just one “s” just as it is as a myspace directory.

And, those “secret shows” (which I’m sure will only happen in a couple of large cities) sound like they may be neat, it’s just too bad that the vast majority of people can’t participate because we haven’t put up a personal ad.

By: thefoodchannel

thefoodchannel — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 15:36:00 +0000

chili’s has one of those names that will cause them great gas pains.

is it chili’s.com …. nope, ( ’s ) won’t resolve, but a large part of the population doesn’t know that.

is it chilli’s with 2 l’s or just one… do you feel lucky punk?

chillys?

chile’s?

ahhh, justf#ckit. let’s go to redlobster instead!

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:12:09 +0000

PS) Targeted ads and possibly an experiment might be one thing, but I’ve seen the Chili’s thing a few places on the dial, including during shows not considered popular with the myspace demo. It may even be throughout their entire ad run, but I can’t really be sure.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:06:48 +0000

If there’s no agreement, then I’d have to hope that it’s based on the positive comments and not just ignorance.

Though I will say that it makes a lot more sense than the current campaign from the Chili’s restaurant chain. The last frame of the recent Chili’s ads give the addy of myspace.com/chilis because I guess they figure, they could just lose all the grown-ups who’ll never have a myspace account and they must feel that their personal ad is somehow better than their own website.

Sure, they might get an auto “mailinglist” consisting of those who might “friend” a business, but in comparison to the numbers of people seeing their television ads and the population as a whole, I’m sure the appearance of a myspace address is enough to significantly limit their online reach.

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 03:05:49 +0000

I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a meeting talking about some website, like Myspace.com. And someone turns to a computer, pulls up a browser, types in Google.com, and then types in myspace.com (with the dot-com at the end) in the search box and hits the search button. It has happened with many different websites and several different people, especially with Firefox. It’s absolutely amazing.

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 03:03:44 +0000

pontiac has been doing that locally for about a year. i, like don, thought they had some type of argeement.

safran, “googlebombing” i think the kids call it.

(google it for more information)

By: Steve Safran

Steve Safran — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 02:56:46 +0000

Maybe they think it gives them a little more cache than simply saying “go to pontiac.com.” It certainly yields more immediate choices. (Pontiac, Michigan among them, but car buyers probably know to avoid that.)

My guess - and it’s just a guess - is that they are trying to say “We’re so confident in our brand and image that if you Google us, you’ll find good information.” Makes it seem a little less blatant, even if the top sponsored result is a paid ad.

One other observation: searching “pontiac,” I had to go 9 pages of results deep before I could find an even vaguely negative story - and that was simply one about the retirement of the always controversial Aztek.

Sadly, a search for “lost” has now dropped us to 21st place. Remember all that traffic we used to get when we were #1 or #2 when the show started?

By: Don

Don — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 02:27:16 +0000

I’ve seen this — and figured they had a deal with Google. Maybe they figure everyone Googles - may as well just play to that. (One of the top refering keywords on google is our own domain name, so lots of folks even google URLs)