Google Revises Trademark Trigger Policy

[bapages]

Tweet

THe TM policy is still in place for terms that appear in adds not the keywords.

[ian-d]

THe TM policy is still in place for terms that appear in adds not the keywords.

Ta mate.

How strange to do one but not the other!

[bapages]

I assume it is on advice from the lawyers

With the keyword infringment they never sent e-mails just disabled them, but with the ads they did send e-mails, which I find strange tobe one not the other.

[Chris Clarkson]

Teletext take legal action to protect their trademark on Google -

Travolution Blog: ++Big story - Teletext gets legal with Directline++

[retrolink]

There must be a lot of Network activity going on regarding affiliate compliance to the brand-bidding, and negative-matching, parts of T&Cs at the moment.

I did a search for just a few discount code type terms, including the brand terms Dixons or PCWorld, and quickly saw a mixture of all the following Affiliate sites pop-up in the Adwords results, seemingly going against the T&Cs:

- VoucherCodes.net
- DiscountCodes.co.uk
- CrazyCodes.co.uk
- PriceDash.co.uk
- VoucherCodes.com

So, a week later, and assuming there are no closed brand-bidding groups, the following sites are breaking the T&Cs on non-negative matching on Dixons brand terms:

- DiscountCodes.co.uk (most prevalent site across my selection of search terms)
- CouponCraze.com
- PriceDash.co.uk
- VoucherCodes.net
- Findvouchercodes.co.uk (outbidding Dixons on 1 term I looked for)
- uk.Shopping.com
- Discountd.co.uk
- Smartfreestuff.co.uk

The following sites are also breaking the T&Cs on non-negative matching on PCWorld brand terms:

- MyVoucherCodes.co.uk
- VoucherCodes.com
- CrazyCodes.co.uk

Do any networks, or merchants, actually follow up on the violations that occur? The PPC campaigns are easy to see but it seems as though the networks and merchants don't really care.

I don't mind the PPC competition if I am allowed to start similar campaigns, but the threat of zero commissions is enough to dissuade me. This threat obviously does not dissuade the sites listed above though...

[cyberbird1]

I've been busy over the last couple of months and haven't had a chance to follow this story so please forgive my ignorance.

Looking at a few examples of serps for brand terms I've been surprised to find no competitors bidding. Not even for 'dixons' which the last post refers to.

What have I missed? Did Google reverse their decision? If not why are the serps devoid of competitors? Or did I not look hard enough?

[nim-b]

Well, I think one of two things is happening:

- companies aren't bidding on their competitors in the hope that their competitors then won't bid on their own brand names.

- (more likely) the CPC is so high and conversion rate so low for competitor terms it just isn't worth it. I think a lot of people have found this- in theory bidding on a competitors brand name sounds great, but in practice its expensive and you are trying to convert people who are already heading towards another site.

I think the only times you will start to see competitor brand bidding happening is for new entrants to a market, where bidding on an established brand might give them much needed exposure.

[cyberbird1]

Thanks nim-b.

I forgot about the way minimum bid works with adwords. If I'm not mistaken (and I easily could be because I only used adwords for a short time) they use historic bid data and CTR of your advert to determine the minimum price you pay.

If I'm right the brand owner might not even need to bid themselves to keep their brand terms free of competitors. I don't suppose this is exactly what Google had in mind when they opened up brand bidding.

[nim-b]

I forgot about the way minimum bid works with adwords. If I'm not mistaken (and I easily could be because I only used adwords for a short time) they use historic bid data and CTR of your advert to determine the minimum price you pay.
.

Exactly. CTR will be low for these adverts, so price will be higher. Also, as they cannot use the brand name in the text of the advert, and there will be no mention of the brand on the landing page, I'm guessing relevance might also come into play.

Indeed, brand owners will not always need to bid on their own brand. They might wish to in order to discourage competitors, and keep the bid prices high should a competitor try anything. Costs for advertising on your own brand are normally very low.

Initially when the rules changed there was a flurry of sites advertising on brands, these dropped off quickly once the Google Quality Score pushed the prices up.