In today’s competitive environment, many advertisers resort to using competitor trademark names as keywords in paid-search advertising. These trademark names appear in the search engine results pages for Google, Yahoo! and affiliates and partners when you buy Google AdWords or Overture Precision Match sponsored listings. Therefore, it’s possible for your competitors to drive substantial traffic to their web sites by virtue of your trademark name, using your reputation to attract visitors.

A fine example of this is the sticky situation with Google AdWords. In an Internetnews.com article titled “Google Adwords Under Further Trademark Scrutiny,” Google was quoted thusly:

“As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. We encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with our advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.”

I can certainly understand Google’s position. Can you imagine what would happen if it were forced to reverse its policy allowing advertisers to buy keywords containing trademark terms belonging to others? This would severely impact Google’s revenue, and no doubt would require exhaustive efforts on their part to prevent such activities from occurring.

It’s interesting to note that originally, Google AdWords did not sell trademarked keywords. However, it currently sells trademarked keywords in the U.S. and Canada (but not internationally) with the proviso that the trademark name can’t be used in the ad copy itself.

The Best Defense is an Offense

Is there any way to protect yourself from competitors raiding your trademark? One way is to hire an SEO vendor to help identify your competitors and then research their search engine advertising activities. Your legal department can subsequently use the SEO research data to protect your trademark and reputation. This step will prove invaluable toward defending your future and ongoing business.

Most often, it will be the smaller, “wannabe” companies riding on your coat tails by using your trademark terms as keywords in their advertising. These companies will generally avoid the threat of legal action upon receipt of a cease and desist letter. Not only are you protecting your name and reputation, you are crushing the competitors that you don’t want representing your firm.

Building Your Marketing Network

Another benefit of mining this competitor data is to assist those whom you do want to benefit from using your trademark name. For instance, you may have affiliates, resellers, and a number of associates with whom you can negotiate on a recurring basis. These are the folks you trust with your trademark and reputation — your friends and family marketing network. There’s something in it for you when they profit from your success.

Knowing who is using your trademark in keyword search advertising or in the body text of their web site has a directly positive effect on managing your brand, your trademark, and your reputation. Make sure your SEO vendor covers this critical marketing aspect for your online success.

A Word of Caution

It goes without saying that you don’t want to use trademark names other than your own in keyword phrases. Profiting from the use of another company’s trademark or brand without relevance or permission is unacceptable and could even result in legal action against you.

Reviewing the above information on trademark term research while interviewing SEO vendors will help you to identify those vendors who provide added value to your search engine marketing and optimization campaign. —-

Paul J. Bruemmer is founder of trademarkSEO. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ClickZ, MarketingProfs, Marketing Today, WebProNews, SitePoint, SEO Today, SEO Consultants, MarcommWise, Pandia, B2B Interactive and Search Engine Guide. TrademarkSEO is a search engine optimization firm based in Santa Ynez Valley, California and serves clients nationwide. His company provided search submission services to over 10,000 websites, including many of the most prominent names in American business.

It’s worse than a soap opera. Software giant finds search engine partner, software giant loses search engine partner, search engine partner finds search engine giant, search engine partner reconsiders software giant offer, search engine giant and search engine partner forge close ties in preparation for the walk into the sunset.

The Microsoft-Yahoo! on-again, off-again talks have been analysed here before so this is now the latest twist to the evolving tale. Following their limited trials of partnering their online search results so that they displayed Google ads the two search companies have now announced that they are ready to take their mating dance to the next level. No, not quite kids, a dog and domestic bliss but Yahoo! has given up the fight for online ads following the lacklustre show of their Panama system and will now display Google Ads alongside their search results.

For website owners active in PPC campaigns this means that they now have something like 87% - 90% of the online search world covered and for those who use Google Ads to monetize their websites the potential to earn more has now got much better with more ads and more choice for their website visitors than ever before (or at least that will be the case when the deal goes live in three months’ time).

How does this affect SEO efforts and the need for a website to perform well in the searches of all three major search engines? In terms of SEO the changes are minimal. Yahoo! may be able to throw more resources at its search engine algorithm and become capable of attracting a larger share of the online search pie in terms of numbers but, at odds with Google and its exotic nature, Yahoo! is firmly wedded to a business model that increases the number of people it attracts to its search engine through partnership deals with software manufacturers (which offer the Yahoo! toolbar) and a convergence between online media content and news as an attraction to its search engine portal.

Google will continue to do what Google does best: to offer the fastest, most relevant in terms of search results, most popular search engine on the planet. If you are running a website on a shoestring budget and are struggling with resources your priorities should be: optimise for Google first (your site’s survival depends on it) and then Yahoo! Don’t omit MSN in case they succeed in surprising us all (after all they do have the R & D budget for it) but don’t lose much sleep either. Figures from websites we have optimised to perform equally well on all three search engines show that even with keywords bringing website results in the first page of MSN, the MSN search engine delivers less than 4% of monthly traffic.