Any Google search for my company name brings up my company at the top of the organic listings - PERFECT. There are however some other companies that are using adwords to bid on variations of my company name and are therefore appearing in the sponsored search area above my company. I have read a few help pages and believe there is nothing I can do about this as my company name is not trademarked? This is not my main issue though. The issue I wish to address here is that one of these companies bidding on my company name is also using my company name in the title of their advert. Surely this breaks some rule as this looks as though it could be my company when in fact they are a competitor with nothing to do with us. I have reported it to Google through the AdWords Trademark Complaint area as this seemed to be the only route I could take but they have obviously said it is not trademarked so they cannot help. Any help appreciated.
Adword new rule : Beginning 4 June 2009, keywords that were restricted as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in many country http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=143903
Thanks, but firstly I am from the UK which isn't affected by this new rule and secondly, my query relates to the use of my company name in the title of the ad text.
They're allowed to us your company name in their keyword bidding whenever they want, regardless of whether you're trademarked or not. To stop them using your company name in their ad text and / or headlines you need to trademark he name and then let Google know - they'll then stop the other companies using the term
Is it not false advertising? The ad looks like it could be my company. It is only the URL which suggests otherwise. I am not really talking about trademark issues here - just thought google would not allow an advert if it was not relevant with extra emphasis being on falsely using a company name. Say I was an adwords advertiser called "Joe's Stationary Store" surely google wouldn't allow me to use the title "Fred's Stationary World" as my ad's title as it is not relevant to me or my site? Sure I could bid on the phrase but I would have to use my own company name or something relevant to the page I was linking it to?
They're totally allowed to do it on adwords if it isn't trademarked, unfortunately! There are plenty of people online who sell products for other people, using their brand names (all totally legit and usually paid commission) - Google can't really go through and differentiate in every case, which is why they use the trademark system for things like this. The good thing though is that if you started advertising you would almost certainly get a higher Quality Score than him, so you'd get a better position for cheaper and earn more from it