Yesterday on Search Engine Land, I scored the search presence of select Superbowl advertisers. Most had some presence, but not necessarily for what people were searching for, and in many cases, the search results display was abysmal.

Two big problems I saw were:

• Overuse of microsites
• Failure to check (and fix) the search results display

Below are some examples of what things looked like yesterday. This week, I’ll dive more into the details of some particular ads.

Microsites

Microsites caused several problems, notably confusion in the results (which site is right?) and lack of visibility for the query sparked by the ad.

Hyundai
In my Search Engine Land article, I listed all of the various sites I found for Hyundai. Based on Google Hot Trends data, people seemed particularly interested in the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. The domain Hyundai flashed for the coupe was edityourown.com. This caused a flurry of searches for [edit you own].

However, since edityourown.com redirects to hyundaigenesis.com/coupe, the domain is nowhere to be found for those searchers.

The words “edit your own” are on the hyundaigenesis.com site in Flash:

The page only seems to show up if you do a site restrict search for the query.

Sobe
Hyundai wasn’t the only brand having trouble with redirecting microsites. Sobe advertised their Lifeworks drink with the domain sobelieve.com. But again, when you search for that exact term? The site is nowhere to be found.

That’s because (you guessed it), sobelieve.com redirects to sobeworld.com. And searchers are left confused.

Results display

It’s also good practice to check not only how your brand ranks in search, but what that result looks like. And you definitely should give things a quick look before launching a huge awareness campaign like a Superbowl ad. Let’s take a look.

Sprint
Spring had some trouble, at least partially caused by Flash. Flash issues seemed to be recurring theme with display issues this year. In this case, the snippet is missing entirely.

And here, the text that compels searchers to click is from an Atlas tracking code.

Verizon
But Sprint wasn’t the only wireless provider with issues. Verizon didn’t provide a super compelling result either:

Miller Highlife
Miller has snippet issues, title issues, and multiple site confusion, but it does have great universal results with its YouTube videos! (If only Miller had uploaded themselves, they could have branded them with a URL in the descriptions and at the end of the videos.)

Monster.com
Monster.com is advertising “the best job in the NFL”, and they’ve got a great paid search result. Unfortunately, while they also have the number one organic spot, it’s a little, ahem, loud.

It’s not enough to rank well. Does the well-ranked result really compel searchers to click?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 am and is filed under Blog, SEO, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.