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Oban has made it to the finals of the Gatwick Diamond Business Awards, in the International Trade category.

The awards are organised by Cadia, the Gatwick Diamond Business Association, and will be presented by BBC News front man Declan Curry.

Oban are experts in international search engine optimisation, and have offices in 26 countries.

A large percentage of Oban’s clients are multinationals (for example, Proctor & Gamble). Some are local UK companies with an international focus.

In addition, Obanners also consider themselves to be part of one of the most multicultural staff in the UK – over 80 percent of their employees are from abroad, as reported recently in Brighton’s Argus newspaper.

“We’re honoured and very excited to have made it this far in these awards,” says Greig Holbrook, Oban’s MD.

“We are trying to make the internet friendlier to the multitude of languages and cultures that are currently struggling to find online content that caters to them, and we strive to extend our reach even further across the globe in everything we do.”

The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner on March 12 at the Gatwick Hilton Hotel.

Also in the International Trade finals are Aerotron, an aviation supplier, and Genesis Forwarding Services, an independent freight forwarder.

By Iwona Szymańska, Search Team Poland

New research shows that Poles prefer to ask their search engine for advice rather than seek the advice of a good friend.

Before going on holidays, the average Pole doesn’t tend to seek friends’ advice or even look through fliers and travel agency offers. Instead, he opens up his favourite search engine to do some online research.

Statistics delivered by Gemius show that over 58 percent of researched Poles polled (pun not intended) base their holiday plans on information they find online.

The most popular online travel agent in Poland is www.triada.pl (41 percent bought their holidays here). The second most popular source of travel research was search engines.

Two-thirds of those polled made use of search engine services while planning their holiday.

About 47 percent also used tourism portals. The portal www.wakacje.pl proved very popular.

Only every third Polish netizen was found to ask family or friends for advice, and even fewer were found to physically go to travel agencies.

http://www.dziennik.pl/podroze/niezbednik/article2934/Polacy_wakacje_planuja_w_sieci.html

By Nikolaos Giannakaros, Search Team Greece

Grecians are flocking to a news website written, read and based in Greek culture. And you’ve probably never heard of it.

Cosmo.gr is now one of the top sites in Greece. Structured as a news, entertainment and lifestyle site, its aim is to inform those Grecians who want to learn quickly and easily what’s happening in Greece and the world.

Cosmo has managed to find a gap in the market. English sites like the BBC tend to have very little Greek content, whereas Cosmo constantly updates its site with breaking national and international news.

Its target audience is purely Greek, but not aimed at any particular gender or age group.

According to Alexa, the site has 68,501 daily page views. Not surprisingly, 90 percent of its readership is based in Greece, however small percentages (presumably Greek expats) are located in the UK, US and other countries.

www.websiteoutlook.com/www.cosmo.gr

www.cosmo.gr

By Katarina Galdunova, Search Team Slovakia

There’s an online battle about to take place in Slovakia that could set a new precedent in Slovakia’s online world.

Internet search engine Zoznam.sk lost its top position on Slovak internet market in late 2008, replaced by the search engine Azet.sk.

The site is now being accused of internet piracy.

The reason? When a Slovakian internet user accidentally types in a non-existing or currently unavailable website, they are redirected to the website www.chyba.sk (“chyba” means “mistake” in Slovakian).

Chyba.sk and Zoznam.sk are both owned by the same company, T-Com.

The Breaking Point

It was the site www.automoto.sk that brought problems to a head. This site is owned by Azet.sk, but is currently unavailable. As it stands, users who type in this site are redirected to a site advertising Zoznam.sk.

Interestingly, although this practice is illegal in many countries, in Slovakia, it’s only considered unethical.

The owner of Azet.sk is looking at legal action to stop this piracy. However, T-Com has pointed out that problem is only an issue on certain DNS servers.

http://medialne.etrend.sk/internet/clanok.php?clanok=6456

http://www.inet.sk/clanok/6874/t-com-si-pri-svojich-projektoch-umelo-zvysuje-navstevnost-doplnene

Online Search Differences and Similarities

By Rafael Ribeiro, Search Team Brazil

At first glance, one would think the numbers say it all: 60 percent of the United Kingdom is online while only 25 percent of Brazil is.

But consider that Brazil has 190 million people, while Britain a mere 61 million, and the tables turn. There are over 10 million more Brazilians online than British, with a massive potential for growth.

International Marketers, Take Note

The average Brazilian spends 19 hours a week surfing, while 14 suffice for Britons. Volumes aside, however, what is important to ask is what the citizens of Latin America’s most influential country do on the web.

Brazilians and Brits differ in their online search behaviour.

Travel and Tourism

Travel and tourism seems popular in both nations (48 percent of Brazilians search for such terms while the British lead with 60 percent).

Online banking

When it comes to banking, Brits take the lead. While 76 percent of the UK use internet banking, the habit is extremely unpopular in Brazil due to the fear of fraud which, surprisingly enough, has affected only nine percent of Brazilians whilst 11 percent of Britons.

Social Networking

Social networking was another divisive issue. While three-quarters of Brazilians visit community websites (the main ones being Orkut, Sonico and MySpace), only slightly over a third of Britons visit Facebook and MySpace regularly.

However, both countries take the lead in their respective continents for social networking.

Online Dating

Another similarity is that both countries are all for online dating. Some research show Brazilians access the internet mostly to date while Britons aren’t far behind, with 90 percent even spending up to £200 on such websites.

* Figures in relation to internet users in Brazil and UK, not of total population figures.

**Information taken from a variety of Brazilian news sources. Contact for details.

By Tatsiana Malochka, Search Team Russia

Russians are gleaning their daily knowledge and insights from online blogs and forums, rather than placing trust in the traditional media.

A Trust Guide 2008 survey showed that nearly twice as many Russians are taking stock of opinions in internet forums, discussions, blogs and chat rooms, compared to figures from 2007.

The survey also revealed that nearly 50 percent of Russians are increasingly trustful of the internet for e-commerce purchases.

Experts note that the confidence in internet resources is on the rise among Russian internet users, which they believe to be more objective than traditional sources of information like print media.

The internet is becoming increasingly important in Russia. It now holds the second-largest online population in Europe, second only to Germany. The influence of social networking has grown almost twofold, while the number of active internet users (logging in one a week or more) has increased from 44 to nearly 70 percent.

Most Russian internet users don’t trust advertising when purchasing goods. Trust Guide 2008 survey revealed that the leaders in terms of trust are “private” information sources.

http://www.abnews.ru/?p=novosti91&news=81904

By Dirk Reinhold Smit, Search Team Netherlands

New research shows that Dutch people are frequent but impatient search engine users.

A recent report by Multiscope showed that 98 percent of Dutch netizens use search engines, two-thirds of whom do so at least four times a week.

However, nearly half of them stop after the first results page, and only 33 percent go beyond the third page.

A follow-up report showed that these same users were more likely to return to a site found via a search engine, than via a banner ad. It added that these visitors seem to buy more, in a shorter amount of time.

Another similar report by Onestat.com showed that Dutch people tend to use upwards of three keywords in their online searches.

Over one-third of Dutch people use at least two keywords in their search queries. Just slightly less than one-third of them use at least three keywords. A mere 16 percent searched with just one keyword.

http://www.revenew.nl/nieuws_vervolg.php/27
http://www.revenew.nl/nieuws_vervolg.php/28

Our FD with some insight on brand keyword bidding.

According to recent research by Forrester European online marketing is predicted to continue growing this year (albeit at a slower rate).

However as you’d expect, clients will be even more scrutinising on getting value for money (and rightly so). Further to this, I noticed that research by the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) showed the cost of bidding on major brands is getting increasingly more expensive. They tracked 90 core brand terms over a 21 month period, which showed a consistent increase in cost-per-click and declines in click-through rate. Not a good combination.

Whilst the decision by Google to allow bidding on competitor terms may be good for the search engines’ bottom line, they need to be careful that the decision doesn’t come back to bite them. Whilst its unlikely that major companies will stop using Google, they might be more inclined to look at other channels if it continues to get more and more difficult to see a payback.

The focus on return on investment for clients is nothing new for us as it has always been a priority for everyone at Oban.

Cheers! Grant.

Sinead gets chatty about Facebook and its privacy/private lives pitfalls.

Today is Facebook’s fifth birthday. With over nine million users, there is plenty to celebrate.

I have never been a fan and was interested to hear the views of Southern FM’s & Sussex radio listeners today.

One user was advising others not to add people they don’t know. He said he made this mistake and suffered written abuse and threats towards his wife.

He was absolutely shocked as he had never met this person before and was worried that the user would have access to his personal information and thus be able to see where he lives.

The man also advised not to give away too much information on your profile page in the first instance.

Another radio listener revealed that after seven months of corresponding with another user, she is now going to travel half way round the world and said that “he is the man that I am going to marry.”

A gentleman caller informed us that he accepted an invitation to his Facebook friend to join her in the US for a week, whilst her fiancée was out of town. He thanked Facebook for providing him with the best week of his life. (So is Facebook helping people cheat and commit adultery?)

I know it is supposed to be a social website but how social and familiar are we supposed to get..

Sinead and Carol attended the Cadia (Gatwick Diamond Business Networking) members meeting today in rural Surrey. Here, Sinead gives us the scoop…

We were happy to hear that the general mood with local businesses in the area is one of caution and not panic. Cadia was urging companies to try and stay upbeat and to see the glass as half full and not half empty.

We were interested to learn that when the new owner of Gatwick Airport (whoever that will be) will be planning to invest 1 billion pounds into the airport for re-development (Hooray, I yell with glee, let’s give Heathrow a run for its money)!

Cadia had a meeting with the local council and was begging them to enforce that any new development that will take place will be run by Sussex companies and not ones from Essex etc. There will be new council housing built in the Gatwick Diamond Area too and again urges were made to utilise local engineering and Construction Company (keep the money spent within Sussex).

Sinead and Carol struck up friendly relations with other Brand, PR and Marketing agencies in the Sussex region: Midnight Blue Communications, Storm Communications and Preview.