[8ytecoder]

1. Nordstrom would rather pay to keep the customer

2. Google charges a fraction for bidding on your own brand/website.

[malchow]

A woman in her sixties Googling for "nordstrom" is a Nordstrom customer.

[8ytecoder]

Of course. That's why I said "keep" and not acquire. What I meant is Nordstrom would rather pay Google to not lose the customer to some other site because of the placement of ads on Google.

[jacquesm]

Sooner or later the new middleman will always start to behave like the old middleman. Before it was the yellow pages, now it's google.