WSI Simply Social

Many of our clients and prospects in South Africa have often asked us to target related keywords for the 2010 Soccer tournament that will happen this year in June.

Most of the requests are for accommodation and tourism.

First off, it is too late to target related keywords for search engines at this time, just 3 months to go as the keywords are competitive and by the time one has built sufficient links to the relevant pages, the event will have come and gone.

The best option available now is to engage in Google Paid Search and compete with other advertisers based on price.

The point of this post is to make you aware of the protected phrases that FIFA have outlawed. They state “Using general football-related or South African-related decoration is allowed, but before you print an item of clothing, flag, poster, banner or anything else for the World Cup, it’s important to be aware of which phrases and logos are protected.”

So one could interpret that the use of these phrases on websites & blogs are also outlawed. We have been aware of this for a while and have advised our clients of the risk they face if targeting these keywords.

Here are the keyword phrases that are outlawed. (I use an image so they don’t get indexed")

They go on to say that that you shouldn’t take a chance as it could mean the end of your business.

There are some steep fines so it’s not worth it.

Has anyone any other information that suggests these keyword phrases are not allowed to be targeted for search terms? I would welcome your feedback.