But do you think that the specific call to action and the prominent positioning of it could *possibly* be beneficial to them in that it might create an “impulse shopper” that didn’t already have shopping at Apple on their mind but has become interested specifically by their offer. I know you could funnel the inbounds off with a script, however the Google results convey a more editorial impact so I am not certain if you can draw the exact same effect.

Of course, in the end you still go back to your point that there are probably better ways to spend the dime than on people that are likely inbound to your own website anyway.

Is probably a fairly large waste. They buy the word “apple” to show up one line higher than a diet supplement… yet they literally own all the organic search results on page one, with the exception of a wikipedia entry.

I would have to see the metrics involved and the ROI, but would lean towards a script or having a proper traffic-flow done for them so that they are maximizing on organic results.

Currently the word “apple” is a $1.69 – $2.53 CPC, has between 4,240 to 5,462 searches a day, and costs $7,380 to $13,840 daily.

That tells me Apple could be spending $300k a month on PPC for “apple”

I would be happy to compare what a good SEO/SEM campaign would do for them with proper traffic flow analysis on a yearly budget of $3.6 million.

The “Aple” part is an easy target in SEM’ville. All of the regular Apple sites could easily have high ranking for simple mispellings.

Apple however, probably has a team of online marketers closely watching ROI, so it makes sense for them. If they are not watching the ROI like a hawk though, they could be flushing away $3 million in Apple money. (Guess its nice for them to be a Fortune 500)

They are currently running an ad for their store. I don’t think a script redirect would work as well in their case, plus they lose the sharp call to action if shut off PPC on the brand phrase.

BTW, in regards to misspellings try a search in G for “aple”. They target students with an educational offer for the misspelling – how funny!

From an SEO perspective, you can also target all sorts of brand mis-spellings.

You really shouldn’t have this issue on a generic word, as trademarks on generic words are not too common (but I can admit, they do exist)

The most valid reason I can think of a CPC is that it can be instantly applied, if one day you suddenly realize there is a word you forgot on your SEM list.