Affiliate Propaganda

When I search for a product that I'm interested in purchasing, I hope to be greeted with the most relevant pages. Typically, this would mean that I would find the 'official' page for the product in question. This is assuming that the manufacturer, retailer has an online pressence, but everyone does nowadays.

A study shows that 15% of Brand Searches Stray away from Company sites. This is extremely interesting and frankly exciting that affiliates have a chance to market a product for the big boys. Your affiliate page has the potential for being a point of sale for Brand Searching.

Users' behavior when conducting searches that include brand names is especially interesting in light of ongoing legal battles over search engines' trademark-related advertising policies. Queries involving brand names are growing in popularity, too.

Because of these findings no doubt trademark violations will be cracked down on a lot more. Google Adwords already doesn't allow the use of Trademarked names in it's campaign. But how does this affect affiliates and what advantages do 'official' sites stand to gain?

Time will tell if Google/MSN/Yahoo! want to truly keep affiliate sites out of the branding searches.