The simplistic query box is the epitome of the Google brand. However on occasions Google have modified their logo in honour of special occasions or holidays. Previous ‘doodles’ include St Patricks Day, Easter, Spring and they usually last for 24 hours. One way of utilising this logo change in paid search is to bid on the keyword of the SERP that the logo clicks through to.

On 12th February Google changed their logo to celebrate Charles Darwin 200th birthday, Unique Digital decided to bid on the keyword ‘Charles Darwin’ in relation to their Darwin suite of media management tools. The link between Charles Darwin’s Birthday and Unique Digital was tenuous, however it received 70,341 impressions and 60 clicks before Google squashed its quality score. Interestingly, it took Google’s system around 4 hours to deem it irrelevant and then take it offline. This time of 4 hours is usual for a keyword that has no previous PPC history, but then gets a surge due to a Google Logo. This shows the amount of time it takes for Google to calculate quality score or does it take this amount of time to build up impressions before the system updates? This is part of the Google ‘black box’.

Google insights for search reported that searches for ‘charles darwin’ increased by approximately 500% on 12th February compared to the day before and this is reflected in the high impression volumes. This proved to be a great branding exercise for Unique Digital, as it increased brand awareness and allowed them to distinguish themselves in a competitive market via a relevant channel.