Sneaky Google AD

[Marky]

Hey all,

I wasn't 100% sure where I should post this, so feel free to move this thread if not in the right board.

When you search our company name on Google, there have always been advertisements above the actual search results that are our competitors in our industry. Which is fine, but the title is always the name of our competitors.

One of our engineers just rang in and told me that when he searched our company name in Google, the first result was our company name, but when you click it, it took you to our competitors website.

I looked at it myself, and sure enough the first result on google when you search our company name is an advertisement, where the title is;

OUR COMPANY NAME | Get up to 60% off new | OUR COMPETITORS URL

The link goes to;

ourcompetitor.com/ourcompanyname

It's very deceptive, and anyone that searches our company name and clicks the first result will be taken to our competitor.

Firstly, is this allowed?
Secondly, is there anything I can do to stop this?

Thanks,
Marky

 

[Marky]

EDIT.

Is our competitorname.com/ourcompany name a valid URL?

It could just be a google algorithm mixup.

I just copied the link into the browser and it takes me to our competitors site, but a "Page not found"

The link is:

ourcompetitorname.com/our/companyname

 

[Marky]

Page not found is different. If it actually took your to a page(or sub domain) you could see how it could be a google mixup however google do crawl everything so they should know it's not a valid page.

Your competitor could however have submitted this sub domain to google search when submitting their site. It would be very sneaky as you say if true.

I would get onto google asap and ask for some clarification.

Any idea who I would contact? I guess Googles advertising division of some sort...

I have seen this recently - I asked my technician to chase up an order from a supplier - he googled the company and the link with the company name took him to a different supplier. He didn't realise as they sound similar and ended up confusing everyone chasing up an order that had not been placed.

It's not really fair in my opinion - We're only a small business and the competitor is much larger and could quite easily be taking business from us...

 

[Marky]

I don't think our company name is trademarked (as I believe there are others called a similar name around the country, but not in our area).

I don't want to give out our company name but I can say it follows the same format as ABC Plumbing.

The link on the ad is:

ABC Plumbing | Get up to 60% off new | [Our Competitors Name]

and the actual link below it is:

ourcompetitor.com/abc/plumbing

I have no idea if it breaks any laws or what not, but it certainly doesn't sit right with me...

I've been looking (briefly admittedly) into reporting it to Google, but I wasn't sure where to send my complaint - I see there is a trademarks dispute form, but I feel it is unlikely to help me with this issue.

 

[Marky]

We had this at an old company, did everything to try and fight it but apparently it is perfectly legal and the company I used to work for, despite best efforts, could do absolutely nothing about it.

This happens a lot.

Type in "Hungry house"

The first link will be "Hungry? - Just eat"

Deceptive and cheeky, but If its a paid for advertisement then i guess there isnt a great deal you can do.

Damn that is frustrating

I'm going to send an email anyway, just in case.

Maybe the answer is paying for an advertisement for people who search our company name... Not that we really want to be spending money for that...

 

[Marky]

Might be worth hiring a SEO specialist for a short period of time if that's possible.

We are planning on updating our website relatively soon - Do you think better SEO would help?

 

[Marky]

Always a possibility your missing a trick or two.

I'll have to speak with our Web Designer - Thanks

You can't trademark names that describe your product or service, so if it is "ABC Plumbing" then you can't trademark anything but the "ABC" element anyway.

Plus abbreviation company names are pretty poor at the best of times.

Yeah we're too small to bother with trademarking our name to be honest...

I just did a search on our competitor, and the first hit is their advertisement to their site - So they're paying to be the top result for searching their own site.