Sneaky Google AD

Marky said:
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.
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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.
 
jsmoke said:
Always a possibility your missing a trick or two.
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I'll have to speak with our Web Designer - Thanks :)

Russinating said:
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.
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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.
 
Your competitor can bid on your company name quite legally (even if it is trademarked), however they shouldn't really use your business name in the ad, that is a bit dodgy. Because you're not trademarked, i'm not sure there's anything you can do though, especially if your business name is fairly generic. Maybe just raise it with Google and see what they do - they might be in a good mood and disprove your competitors ad. Here's the form: https://support.google.com/adwords/...?visit_id=1-636679356895528673-396038459&rd=1

Otherwise you could get revenge and start showing ads on their brand term? That might escalate though...
 
Marky said:
We are planning on updating our website relatively soon - Do you think better SEO would help?
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Is your comapny the first google search listing? If so there is no more need for SEO just for your comany name.

Adverts are different. They bid say 35p per word (your Company name) search. There is nothing you can do but bid 36p. However some companies will just keep putting their bid up to waste your advertising budget.

The listings under the adverts are different from search engine results.

Think yourself lucky (or not) that if you are the top search listing for your company name you will get all the paranoid people that use script block.

If however they come top of the search results for your company name then yes you need to sort your SEO.

Marky said:
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.
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I dont know what the minimum bid is now but they could easily be paying just 5p per search.
 
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Xire said:
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.
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Erm, go to hungryhouse and your only option is to go to justeat from that page. Just Eat bought them and shut them down. Not really a good example of what is happening to OP.
 
AndyCr15 said:
Erm, go to hungryhouse and your only option is to go to justeat from that page. Just Eat bought them and shut them down. Not really a good example of what is happening to OP.
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quite clearly I wasnt aware hungry house was bought out by Just eat was I :)
 
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