Blocking your own brand from PPC Ads

[Proffa]

We are getting few thousand brand searches on Google every month.
I recently noticed that there's PPC ads appearing with our own brand search.

Is there anyway to block ads from our own brand searches? Would trademark do the trick? Is it even possible to trademark an affiliate brand?

The ads are appearing in non-regulated market, so the ads are done by some cloaker / Blackhat ppc person.

[Strider1973]

What do you mean with "with our own brand search"?

If someone searches for "casino professor", and an advertiser has "casino" as a keyword in his adwords campaign, then his ad might be shown and you can do nothing about this.

If the ads that are displayed use the text "casino-professor.com", then you might be able to do something.

[Proffa]

What do you mean with "with our own brand search"?

If someone searches for "casino professor", and an advertiser has "casino" as a keyword in his adwords campaign, then his ad might be shown and you can do nothing about this.

If the ads that are displayed use the text "casino-professor.com", then you might be able to do something.

It is actually a Finnish word (Casinoproffa), which is our brand name in Finland. The ads don't display anything related to our brand, but they are clearly targeting casino traffic.

[Strider1973]

The ads don't display anything related to our brand, but they are clearly targeting casino traffic.

Well, that's the purpose of those ads, and that's how Google makes 90% of its revenues...

But I wonder why there are Casino ads on Google for non-regulated markets (I also just saw one for my country), because afaik it's not possible to run Casino ads in non-regulated countries on Adwords. But I don't think it's worth to report it.

[Proffa]

Well, that's the purpose of those ads, and that's how Google makes 90% of its revenues...

But I wonder why there are Casino ads on Google for non-regulated markets (I also just saw one for my country), because afaik it's not possible to run Casino ads in non-regulated countries on Adwords. But I don't think it's worth to report it.

It's called cloaking - You show different website for google bots and visitors coming outside of the target country and a different website for people searching from Finland.
There's more and more of these ads showing up for high value keywords and needless to say, people who know how to do it are making nice purses out of it.

[Triple7]

We are getting few thousand brand searches on Google every month.
I recently noticed that there's PPC ads appearing with our own brand search.

Is there anyway to block ads from our own brand searches? Would trademark do the trick? Is it even possible to trademark an affiliate brand?

The ads are appearing in non-regulated market, so the ads are done by some cloaker / Blackhat ppc person.

It is possible to register a trade mark as an affiliate brand, as long as it's not too general. You cannot claim for example CasinoReviews as brand name or Compare Casinos.

Casino Professor would be worth trying, also in combination with the logo.

Recently i've notived a big influx of Google Adwords ads in unregulated markets. It seems Google just don't check anymore or something.

[Poker-Australian]

Trademarking is the way to go, but im not sure you will be able to trademark the words casino professor as it might be too vague and of general use. you will most likely only be able to trademark the image, which Google then will not accept as infringement as you do not have ownership over the words. However, I'm not an IP lawyer and it depends on your jurisdictions etc.

[Strider1973]

No, trademarking is not the way to go.

Even if you trademark "CasinoProfessor", then Google will still show generic casino ads as long someone bids for the KW "casino".

If he'd trademark his brand and someone uses his brand name in Adwords ad text, then he could ask to have that ad removed. But that's not the case here.

[Proffa]

It is possible to register a trade mark as an affiliate brand, as long as it's not too general. You cannot claim for example CasinoReviews as brand name or Compare Casinos.

Casino Professor would be worth trying, also in combination with the logo.

Recently i've notived a big influx of Google Adwords ads in unregulated markets. It seems Google just don't check anymore or something.

What I know about cloacking is, that is fairly simply to trick google bots in this case. You just do a server side redirect for certain user agents (such as google bots). The trickiest part is the fact that your adwords account will get eventually banned. Once your adwords account gets banned, you cannot use the same credit card for a new account.

It's game of cat and mouse, but since you can get on top of the search results with high value keywords it's possible to make lots of money with this method.

[Proffa]

Anyway, I appreciate the input from everyone. Will try look bit further if it's possible to trademark our brand and logo

[betcode]

Google bans ads that contain trademarks, but allows generic ads on branded searches.

Like the person said above it’s how Google makes a lot of their revenue.

[cesarem]

hi guys,
interesting topic.
Regarding trademark violation on Google, it has nothing to do with targeting a keyword, even if it is also a brand with a trademark.
Example. Let's say I work for Pokerstars and in my keyword list I have [888 poker]. Someone searches for 888poker and my ad appears.
That is not trademark violation, unless your ad copy or landing page contains 888.
So @Proffa, there is no way to block these ads, even because in your case, considering your brand contains the word "casino", the advertiser might not be actively bidding on your brand terms.