I wanted to advertise for something related to 'Toyota' and google is telling me it is a copyrighted word. Now that is frustrating since I am not competing with Toyo or anything. I also put in another phrase with Toyota that just went thru fie There is a way to get exception on this as well, which I have not tried. Any clues on how to deal with this 'copyright' situation, and any experience getting an exception.
Heh, sometimes one does slip by them, or maybe you entered a 'valid' reason. (not selling <x> product sometimes being 'one'/ok) - One thing i can say though that i know works much better is, using models of products instead of the product brand name itself. Sometimes it takes messing with a little, like they'll let you bid on a brand name word, but not display the word in your ad, there's some gray area here.. In your situation i would say if you're trying to advertise something about the truck 'Toyota Tacoma' (which is called the Hilux in australia btw) i would try bidding on the word 'toyota' but not putting 'Toyota' in the displayed ad, just word 'Tacoma Truck' w/out it somehow. There is ways around this using product models instead of the brand name, which goes for many other companies too.
Thanks JKE. Yes, I was also thinking of using something like 'Japanese Cars' in the ad itself, and use toyota as a keyword (which is ok). Not as effective (since the phrase 'japanese cars' does not get highlighted) but still should draw some traffic, specially since no one else's ad is drawing any decent traffic either Yes, it sometimes gets through, sometimes not. Also not all brands are protected that way, I guess some file a request with google to have their brand protected, some don't.
Regarding copyrighted keywords - I would also add that while in some cases you can get some things through Google does back check and will deactivate words/ads at later dates if they are found to be in violation. It happened to an associate of mine a few weeks back - one of their highest converting words got nixed after 3 months of being in place.
Are you not allowed to use copyrighted words, period, or the ones who complained and filed something with google. If that is the case, I cannot use Toyota, Nissan, Honda, .... ???
I think in the case of my associate the keyword was "complained about" by the owner after the campaign was already live. When he set the campaign up a few months back he got no automated notice, when I try the same keyword today I get the notice. I just wanted to point it out so you didn't end up surprised a few month down the road. Nothing's worse than seeing your best performing ad/keyword get nixed after you've started to count on the results it's producing.
Thanks. Looks like Toyota is only getting itself and its affiliates /dealers listed, while Nissan has different things (even Lemon Law attorney, which is NOT their friend), so I think it is case by case. I would think half of google's revenue would dry up if they enforced that rule across the board. Your point about not getting disappointed is well taken. They have a db of enforced copyright words, I believe, and if you get in initially, you maybe barred later from using it, but from what I see, I would not be shy about using the words- if others (non affiliates of that trademark holder) are using them. I don't think it gets your acct banned or anything.
You got it - milk it for all it's worth while you can...just don't bet the house on the fact that it will still be there tomorrow
From the adwords learning center: The owner of a trademark has to 'claim the rights' to prevent other from using it.
I dont think it would work in this case but sometimes google does get its copyrighted words wrong. I had a case and sent google an e-mail and then another e-mail and they removed the list from the copyrighted list. So it can be done, although not sure about getting actual trade names de listed. Might be worth a couple of e-mails though?
I have a TON of "copyrighted" words as my keywords for Google/Yahoo/MSN ads, as well as most of my domain names... Never had an issue before.