2010 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) POLICY Effective January 1st 2010 the following changes went into effect:

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1 2010 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) POLICY Effective January 1st 2010 the following changes went into effect: Travel agencies can no longer bid on Holland America Line branded words, or any misspellings intended to resemble Holland America branded words, (identified as Holland America Line s Property in the Travel Agency policy) on any search engine or travel search sites. Holland America Line branded words cannot be included in the Link Text of any search ad (see screen shot below for example of Link Text. ) When purchasing generic cruise-related keywords (such as cruise or ship or cruise deals ) or when purchasing destination or port keywords for any port or destination serviced by Holland America Line (such as Caribbean or Alaska or Europe ) on broad and phrase match keyword terms programs, the travel agency must ensure that its ads do not appear for consumer searches which include Holland America Line s Property in combination with the generic keywords. To do this, the travel agency must list the following as negative phrase match keywords for all their search campaigns: o Holland America o Holland America Line o Hollandamerica o Hollandamericaline o HollandAmerica.com o o Holand America o Holandamerica o Signature of Excellence o HAL o Any HAL ship names For example, it would be a violation of the policy if a consumer search using a keyword phrase such as Holland America Alaska cruises triggers the travel agency s ad to appear if Alaska cruises was originally bid by the travel agency without the negative keyword of Holland America. Travel agencies bidding on generic cruise-related words can include Holland America Line in the Ad Text portion of the search results, provided the messaging is consistent with our Travel Agency policy and the ad links to a Holland America Line-dedicated landing page on the agency s site. See red box below for an example of Ad Text.

2 SUPPORTING POINTS The decision to not allow travel agencies to bid on our branded keywords is based on the following: HollandAmerica.com provides the most relevant and up to date product content, and serves as a great resource for travel agents and consumers. HollandAmerca.com conveys what the Signature of Excellence experience is from the moment the guest begins to research their cruise vacation and enhances the experience they will have onboard. When searching for Holland America Line, we want to ensure that consumers are finding the richest Holland America content. Additionally, we have a travel agency locator on hollandamerica.com for those consumers searching for a travel agency. Holland America Line wants more clarity in brand messaging. The previous practice created brand confusion. Even though the vast majority of Holland America guests book through a travel agency, 60% - 80% of them are first researching on HollandAmerica.com Allowing a travel agency to bid on our branded keywords is misleading to the consumer, as their intent when searching a Holland America term is to get to Holland America s site which provides the richest and most relevant Holland America content. This change in policy is becoming a best practice for many large brands, including Starbucks and Marriott, who do not allow other companies to use their brand name in paid advertising online.

3 2010 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) FAQs What is SEM? Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of advertising on search engine sites, such as Google & Yahoo, by purchasing keywords in a pay-per-click model. The advertiser bids on keywords relevant to a consumer search, such as Caribbean cruises, and the search engine generates ad results based on the highest bid for those keywords. Once the consumer clicks on the sponsored link or paid advertisement, the advertiser is charged a per click cost based on their bid. What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing website content to improve the volume and/or quality of traffic to the website from search engines via "organic" search results. The organic search results are the non-sponsored results (i.e. not paid for by an advertiser) that appear when someone searches their keyword(s). Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to increase its relevance to specific keywords. A properly optimized website will remain in the top search results, increasing web traffic to the site. SEO works because it helps drive more consumers to a website due to its relevance to their search topic, while ideally driving down costs for pay-per-click advertising. Does the policy apply to anyone outside of Holland America Line? Yes- the SEM policy applies to all travel partners equally. How does SEO differ from SEM? SEO drives consumers to a website due to the relevance of a website s content to the consumer search. SEM drives consumers to a website by generating a list of sponsored links that are relevant to the consumer s search. See screenshot example below.

4 Sample of Organic vs. Paid Search Results What has Holland America Line changed? Holland America Line no longer allows travel partners to bid on Holland America Line branded keywords as part of their search advertising campaigns. Travel partners can still bid on generic cruise-related terms that are in compliance with this policy as noted above. In order to be compliant with the policy, the travel partner must also list Holland America Line trademarks and ship names as a negative keyword match for their generic keyword search campaigns. What does negative keyword mean? And how does it work? Adding a negative keyword to an ad group or campaign means that ads will not show up for search queries containing that term. How do I set up negative keywords? The process to add negative keywords to an ad group or campaign is just like adding any other keyword. The only difference is that you put a negative sign ( ) before the term. For instance, if you were bidding on the keyword real estate and you add the negative keyword commercial, the ad will not appear when a user searches for commercial real estate. NOTE: The process of adding negative keywords to a campaign can vary based on the publisher (Google is different than Bing/Yahoo) and the tools used to implement negatives (Desktop Editors vs. Search Engine UIs). More information can be found on the tactical steps needed to add/edit negative keywords here: Google Bing/Yahoo

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