Does the competitor's ad appear above search results or to the right?

Above, it is the only ad for the domain name.

I don't know about the rules in NZ; here in the US there's no rule against that as far as I know. I target ads on my client's competitor's domain names, and they target ads on ours.

The best way to fight it is to make an ad for yourself and say (essentially) Hey, you, over here - this is REAL site, this is the one you want, everyone else advertising for this domain is a fake.

You should be able to beat them on quality score, so it shouldn't cost too much; I *always* advocate bidding on your own brand and domain keywords anyway because they tend to be real performers (even if you already have the top organics) and it gives you a chance to stick it to the competition (if you're of that bent - I for one, am.)

That's interesting. Generally speaking, competitors ads get placed on the right hand side because Google do not deem them relevant. Bidding on other companies domains rarely give you a relevancy score/quality score higher than 3-4, thus you're positioned on the right hand side regardless how high the bid is.

I'm going to make a qualified guess and say that the domain is specific to the industry, perhaps has the location or business category in url. Although this is a great domain, sometimes it means competitors can bid on similar keywords and appear on your domain search, with a fairly solid quality score. Your competitor must have a QS of 6 and up to appear above search results.

You'd probably prefer to stay out of bidding on your client's domain. In this case, however, it would be in your best interest to do so. The good news is that your CPCs will be minimal.

(P.S. This is not what is generally considered to be domain name pirating)

The domain name is an acronym (uses the 4 first letters of the four word company name) so the domain is not a real word. No location or business category or anything like that in the domain name. There are a significant number of searches for the actual domain name, so my client is obviously losing traffic so we will have to compete on this I guess.

Just seems like fraud to me. If I placed an add in the newspaper with my competitor's company name, but gave my street address and phone number, that would be fraud, wouldn't it? This feels like the same thing.

If I placed an add in the newspaper with my competitor's company name, but gave my street address and phone number, that would be fraud, wouldn't it? This feels like the same thing.

If your competitor used your domain/business name in ad copy, it would be the same thing.

While I understand your point of view, Google makes up the rules and you can choose to participate or not. I don't think fairness was Google's deciding factor for this particular rule.

Just to clarify, they are advertising when someone searches on your URL, NOT using your URL in their search. So if I search for webmasterwworld, they see an ad for wheel's-wonderful-seo-strategy. that's fair enough and common practice in PPC, advertise your products in front of people looking at your competitor's product.

It's an entirely different story if they were representing themselves as your url - but that's not what you'd indicated was happening.

the only other route I can suggest other than 'business sucks' is perhaps your industry has some recourse. I know if I sent this practice to the regulators in my industry they'd have this competitor for breakfast. They freak out at the stupidest stuff, any sniff of misrepresentation, real or not, would give them seizures.

Thanks everyone for all the clarifications. I can see how "All is fair in love, war and PPC"!

@wheel, yes you have it correct. My client already has a High Court injunction against this competitor for misrepresentation (the competitor has passed himself off in print and on the phone as my client previously), so we may be able to pursue that avenue.

I am not a lawyer but in my totally unreliable layman's opinion simply bidding on your name would not constitute "passing off". If the ad itself pretends to be leading to your site then that is a different matter of course.

Hmm I find it very intresting the ad shows at all. There must be enough searches for the url to not get the "not enough searches for this add to show".

Does the client have a domain / business name trademarked? You can consider requesting a trademark block on that keyword.

We've done this is the past and its a long tedious process, including informing the local office in a not so subtle manner when we got tired of waiting on the US teams to get their thumbs out.

In your case, since you have an injunction against this party, try and make contact with the local office and see if they can assist. If nothing else, it informs them that they're enabling this person to violate the injunction.

I don't know about NZ, but in the US you can bid on trademarks as keywords, you just can't use them in the ad text.

If you mean another NZ competitor, you'd be best forgetting about Google, and filing another suit in NZ against the advertiser. Google do not, and I mean do not, give a two-penny shag about your IP or legal rights; they actively work to corrode the rights of webmasters, copyright holders, trademark owners, et al, and they will do their utmost to avoid setting any precedent against their own favor - and they most certainly would actively despise any suggestion that they should pay heed to NZ law as opposed to the Californian or Irish jurisdiction they would hope to select for themselves.

A hint of the arrogance Google display, mixed in with their disdain for the law and IP law in particular, is their implication that you should have "trademarked" the term in question, as if actually registering the TM is at all necessary. 1) An established trademark, assuming it can be demonstrated as in fact being a trademark, has the same weight of law behind it, registered or not, and 2) using your trademark (assuming a brand name or something) in a domain name would be its own infringement; the fact that there's www in front and .co.nz after is completely beside the point.

So forget Google's "policies", they do not set NZ law: go talk to an IP lawyer, and see if it's their opinion that using your domain in that manner constitutes trademark infringement. Given the precedent you apparently have I'm sure they will be happy to give you a free consultation.

No one is pirating anything. You competitors are getting a chance to tell your customers that they have an alternative. Its called a free market and its a good thing (for society at large, not for you) that Google are not trying to hinder it.

The domain name is an acronym (uses the 4 first letters of the four word company name)

If the domain stands for a "popular acronym" - such as "FSBO" being the acronym for "For Sale By Owner" - then you are probably dealing with a non-exclusive use, non-trademarkable phrase . . and domain.

Beauty and fragility often go hand-in-hand.

This reminds me of a very old thread that I wish I could find where this is talked about a lot. I think it's from 5-7 years ago.

A tactic that is used is to also determine which of your competitors is active in SEO; and to see how often their domain is searched (remember, many people don't go to facebook directly - they search for facebook or facebook.com and then click on the link to get there - very common behavior).

Bidding on:
site:example.com
link:example.com
etc..

Can give you insight into your competitors.

Overall, these keywords will not get impressions as the search volume is too low. But, when they do start to show up; you know which of your competitors are starting to engage in SEO; and if it's a larger company - sometimes in the search query report you can see additional links, title tag, etc info that they are targeting depending on how good they are with Google search operators.

oooo, I like that!

We strongly encourage you to go ahead and trademark this term

Have you considered getting a trademark?

netmeg me 2!

@alexel

Your competitor must have a QS of 6 and up to appear above search results.

Are you sure about that? Even for a non-competitive keyword/keyword phrase? So you're saying the top 3 positions, in addition to a high-enough bid, must have a QS above 6?
- so even if it's the only ad that is displaying for a given search, the ad will appear on the right hand side? Which is technically position 4?

Are you sure about that? Even for a non-competitive keyword/keyword phrase? So you're saying the top 3 positions, in addition to a high-enough bid, must have a QS above 6?
- so even if it's the only ad that is displaying for a given search, the ad will appear on the right hand side? Which is technically position 4?

I'm sure you can find examples that disprove that assertion, but based on what I've seen, yes.

It does seem to depend on keyword volume but in general, if your QS is crappy, your ad rank is crappy and you'll be placed right hand side. You probably could combat, if you wanted to make a point, by exaggerated bidding but it wouldn't be in your best interest.

There are clearly two things for you to do:

1- Start bidding on your own domain and trademark. Make sure you optimize your ads as much as possible, by adding all 10 available site links, your address from google place (if relevant), etc... and specifying that you are the officila site. Bid high enough to make sure you are at position 1. Your QS should not be lower than 9 (it will surely be 10), which should make your keyword cheap and probably more expensive for your competitor.

2- Start bidding on your competitor name. Be smarter than him and don't lie or cheat. This means, don't try to confuse the user by making him believe that your site is the one of your competitor but make clear that you are an alternative to your competitor. In that case I suggest to target not higher than position 2.