Article: Web Marketing: Search Engines: Out of Banks' Plain View: Google, Yahoo! and MSN are trying to convince banks to ramp up search-engine advertising and optimization. So far, banks haven't taken the bait. Well, for heaven's sake, why not?

Searching for "computers" on Google one January evening brought up a trove of hits on the usual suspects: Dell, Gateway, Apple and CNET. "Trucks" produced front-page links to Chevrolet and GMC, along with a sponsored tie-in to Nissan's bad-boy Titan King Cab.

So how about "banks"? Not a Bank of America, Wachovia, Citigroup, Chase or Wells Fargo turned up in the bunch. The most relevant hits, per Google's algorithms (and discounting sponsored links), were SunTrust Banks and Huntington National Bank-along with blood donation centers, the Outer Banks, NC, tourism bureau, and British science fiction novelist Iain Banks. Even in the paid- listings space that ...

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