[xp84]

> branded keywords aren't that great to run ads on anyway, you pretty much get all the traffic from them anyway since that's what the user wanted anyway, you don't really have to pay for it.

Haven’t finished the article yet but this jumped out at me. This doesn’t ring true to me. Google runs an extortion scheme - since you can buy ads on your competitors’ trademarks, and since no users can tell ads from results (and since the organic results are now buried so far, they rarely get clicks anyway) if you don’t buy your brand keywords your competitors will get all your traffic.