7 ms·

It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that

It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine many others do the same.

kennethh 4y ago
It was not allowed in the early days of google adsense, but guess it was to profitable to not allow it.
urbandw311er 4y ago
This is an underrated comment. Google are enabling fraud on a massive scale by permitting the hijacking of established names and brands. Often brands or names that some small family company has worked for years to build a reputation for. We do indeed live in a world where tech and capitalism have birthed some sort of horrific offspring that’s choking us all.
- fmajid 4y ago
  To be fair, in this case it's more racketeering.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  But that's only part of it. Google will also happily serve up ads for fake bank websites that will steal your credentials. Google will happily serve up ads for a lot of malicious content on the Internet. Google are not only making it worse because of advertising, they're making it worse by facilitating scammers and fraudsters and various other criminals. All because their systems are so automated as to eschew any review that might actually make advertising on the Internet slightly less distasteful (and maybe the FBI wouldn't be recommending the choking off of Google's primary income stream)
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Yep, but try to put Google ads on a page with naked or scantily dressed people, you'll get banned real fast. =) Stealing and impersonation good, sex bad.
    - input_sh 4y ago
      I don't think sex bad is a Google problem as much the US problem. After all, it's not just ads and it's not just Google. People in the US have this puritanical view on sex -> it is inherited by Silicon Valley -> it gets forced onto the rest of us. Since the rest of us are forced to rely on US-based products in some capacity (app stores, payment processors, CDNs...), you can't make anything sex-related even in places where sex work is viewed far more openly than in the US.
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    Let me correct that for you - the systems are automated to provide plausible deniability, just like with the recent Hertz scandal. As soon as you admit there may be a problem with the automation the door is cracked open to admit a lawsuit in. It's the equivalent of "computer says", and the legal system is greased to permit such abuse. The US doesn't have a smalltime corruption problem, you don't bribe your local cop, it has a bigmoney corruption problem as seen (again) here.
- bunnyswipe_com 4y ago
  If we keep going down the capitalism route, We are going to end up with 10 'scammer' ad in the top 10 result, each and everyone fighting each other with more ad budget and lower profit margins. In the end, the website owner won't even need a website.
- wil421 4y ago
  You could replace Google with Amazon and the same thing is happening there with fake reviews and product takedowns.
londons_explore 4y ago
> Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. You shouldn't need to do this. Googles ad auction on search multiplies your bid by a quality score when deciding which ad to show. A site that satisfies what the user is looking for will have a high quality score, whereas the 'wrong' site (ie. one for a competitor) will have a low quality score - partly determined by the user clicking the back button when they find they have been misled. That means that if your competitors are pumping $100 into becoming the top search result, you perhaps only need to put $1 into getting the same ad spot. If you are finding that not to be true, then it might be because your site is low quality for some reason (for example, maybe it doesn't load for some users in some browsers), or maybe your site doesn't have the info people are looking for when they search your company name.
- iconosynclast 4y ago
  This doesn't seem to work very well at all. I frequently search for a particular vendor of something by name only to be served another similar vendor as the top result. It feels like it should be doable to serve these results in some sort of "you may also like these similar vendors" box or something like that which would massively improve the user experience
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    It doesn't work if the real company isn't an advertiser, or if they are an advertiser but aren't in this auction due to their targeting rules or being out of budget.
    - epberry 4y ago
      Appreciate these insights. I'm just getting into setting this up for my company.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    Seeing an ad for another vendor is bad. Seeing an ad that looks like what you searched for but is actually malware[1] is worse. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse-google-ads-to-spread-malware-in-legit-software/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse...
fallingknife 4y ago
It may not be their biggest revenue stream, but I'll bet it's critical to Google for another reason. Advertising is somewhat zero sum. You can invent a more effective way to advertise, but the total dollars that a business will spend on advertising will remain the same, just through the new channel. So how do you increase revenue once you have captured the market? Make businesses spend to defend their own brand against imposters. This is something that didn't even exist prior to online advertising and could get businesses to actually increase their ad spend over what they would have previously. The internet is becoming more dystopian every day.
aikinai 4y ago
I disagree that it’s a scam to advertise over someone else’s name as long as it’s clear and you’re not trying to confuse the user. I’ve found better alternatives than what I was looking for through competitor ads. I’ve had this happen on Google and the App Store and I appreciate it. It gives newer, or less well-known, companies a chance to gain exposure. And consumers like me might learn about a superior option they didn’t know previously. Edit: Thought experiment. Over in the Figma thread there’s a lot of talk about trying to ween themselves and others off Adobe products. So is it really a negative for the industry and consumers if Figma shows ads on searches for Photoshop?
- po8crg 4y ago
  If Figma is running an ad on the Photoshop keyword, then it should be blatantly obvious that it's not an ad for Photoshop. Like "Figma: an Alternative to Photoshop" (you can tell I'm not an advertising copywriter).
- aembleton 4y ago
  > as long as it’s clear and you’re not trying to confuse the user. Fair enough, but a lot of them are trying to confuse the customer, as Cory Doctorow found
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    Yea, I think it should be allowed to advertise in another brand, but it should draw heightened scrutiny. If the ad at all appears to originate from the company that is the target of the ad keyword it should be rejected or require verification that it’s from the company. Google could even charge a $10 “review fee” for ads placed directly on competitors keywords (per ad treatment, not per ad treatment per keyword) to discourage this behavior from scammers
- x0x0 4y ago
  > is it really a negative for the industry and consumers if Figma shows ads on searches for Photoshop? Yes, because Google's intended and actual outcome is companies are blackmailed into paying to compete on advertising for their own names. Which is highly likely a navigation query. It would be different if someone googled "photoshop alternatives" or sth

kennethh 4y ago

It was not allowed in the early days of google adsense, but guess it was to profitable to not allow it.

urbandw311er 4y ago

This is an underrated comment. Google are enabling fraud on a massive scale by permitting the hijacking of established names and brands. Often brands or names that some small family company has worked for years to build a reputation for. We do indeed live in a world where tech and capitalism have birthed some sort of horrific offspring that’s choking us all.

fmajid 4y ago
To be fair, in this case it's more racketeering.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
But that's only part of it. Google will also happily serve up ads for fake bank websites that will steal your credentials. Google will happily serve up ads for a lot of malicious content on the Internet. Google are not only making it worse because of advertising, they're making it worse by facilitating scammers and fraudsters and various other criminals. All because their systems are so automated as to eschew any review that might actually make advertising on the Internet slightly less distasteful (and maybe the FBI wouldn't be recommending the choking off of Google's primary income stream)
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Yep, but try to put Google ads on a page with naked or scantily dressed people, you'll get banned real fast. =) Stealing and impersonation good, sex bad.
  - input_sh 4y ago
    I don't think sex bad is a Google problem as much the US problem. After all, it's not just ads and it's not just Google. People in the US have this puritanical view on sex -> it is inherited by Silicon Valley -> it gets forced onto the rest of us. Since the rest of us are forced to rely on US-based products in some capacity (app stores, payment processors, CDNs...), you can't make anything sex-related even in places where sex work is viewed far more openly than in the US.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  Let me correct that for you - the systems are automated to provide plausible deniability, just like with the recent Hertz scandal. As soon as you admit there may be a problem with the automation the door is cracked open to admit a lawsuit in. It's the equivalent of "computer says", and the legal system is greased to permit such abuse. The US doesn't have a smalltime corruption problem, you don't bribe your local cop, it has a bigmoney corruption problem as seen (again) here.
bunnyswipe_com 4y ago
If we keep going down the capitalism route, We are going to end up with 10 'scammer' ad in the top 10 result, each and everyone fighting each other with more ad budget and lower profit margins. In the end, the website owner won't even need a website.
wil421 4y ago
You could replace Google with Amazon and the same thing is happening there with fake reviews and product takedowns.

londons_explore 4y ago

> Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. You shouldn't need to do this. Googles ad auction on search multiplies your bid by a quality score when deciding which ad to show. A site that satisfies what the user is looking for will have a high quality score, whereas the 'wrong' site (ie. one for a competitor) will have a low quality score - partly determined by the user clicking the back button when they find they have been misled. That means that if your competitors are pumping $100 into becoming the top search result, you perhaps only need to put $1 into getting the same ad spot. If you are finding that not to be true, then it might be because your site is low quality for some reason (for example, maybe it doesn't load for some users in some browsers), or maybe your site doesn't have the info people are looking for when they search your company name.

iconosynclast 4y ago
This doesn't seem to work very well at all. I frequently search for a particular vendor of something by name only to be served another similar vendor as the top result. It feels like it should be doable to serve these results in some sort of "you may also like these similar vendors" box or something like that which would massively improve the user experience
- londons_explore 4y ago
  It doesn't work if the real company isn't an advertiser, or if they are an advertiser but aren't in this auction due to their targeting rules or being out of budget.
  - epberry 4y ago
    Appreciate these insights. I'm just getting into setting this up for my company.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Seeing an ad for another vendor is bad. Seeing an ad that looks like what you searched for but is actually malware[1] is worse. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse-google-ads-to-spread-malware-in-legit-software/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse...

fallingknife 4y ago

It may not be their biggest revenue stream, but I'll bet it's critical to Google for another reason. Advertising is somewhat zero sum. You can invent a more effective way to advertise, but the total dollars that a business will spend on advertising will remain the same, just through the new channel. So how do you increase revenue once you have captured the market? Make businesses spend to defend their own brand against imposters. This is something that didn't even exist prior to online advertising and could get businesses to actually increase their ad spend over what they would have previously. The internet is becoming more dystopian every day.

aikinai 4y ago

I disagree that it’s a scam to advertise over someone else’s name as long as it’s clear and you’re not trying to confuse the user. I’ve found better alternatives than what I was looking for through competitor ads. I’ve had this happen on Google and the App Store and I appreciate it. It gives newer, or less well-known, companies a chance to gain exposure. And consumers like me might learn about a superior option they didn’t know previously. Edit: Thought experiment. Over in the Figma thread there’s a lot of talk about trying to ween themselves and others off Adobe products. So is it really a negative for the industry and consumers if Figma shows ads on searches for Photoshop?

po8crg 4y ago
If Figma is running an ad on the Photoshop keyword, then it should be blatantly obvious that it's not an ad for Photoshop. Like "Figma: an Alternative to Photoshop" (you can tell I'm not an advertising copywriter).
aembleton 4y ago
> as long as it’s clear and you’re not trying to confuse the user. Fair enough, but a lot of them are trying to confuse the customer, as Cory Doctorow found
- ncallaway 4y ago
  Yea, I think it should be allowed to advertise in another brand, but it should draw heightened scrutiny. If the ad at all appears to originate from the company that is the target of the ad keyword it should be rejected or require verification that it’s from the company. Google could even charge a $10 “review fee” for ads placed directly on competitors keywords (per ad treatment, not per ad treatment per keyword) to discourage this behavior from scammers
x0x0 4y ago
> is it really a negative for the industry and consumers if Figma shows ads on searches for Photoshop? Yes, because Google's intended and actual outcome is companies are blackmailed into paying to compete on advertising for their own names. Which is highly likely a navigation query. It would be different if someone googled "photoshop alternatives" or sth