I have run two local web sites for my city for the past two years, restaurants, shopping etc. Recently a new competitor started up and I don't mind a little competition to keep me on my toes.
I have very good web position on all major engines but recently when I google searched one of my domain names I found that the competitor had purchased it as an Adwords and it appears in the sponsored links right next to my top listing.
I don't care if he buys words like restaurants, shopping, etc but this is targeted directly at my sites. I know this is to reroute traffic to his site and basically steal from my established name.
I complained to google and only got a form letter. I clicked on his sponsored listing till my fingers were blue and the competitor sent me an email telling me he was reporting me to local police and the FBI.
I don't know what to do and this pisses me off. I can continue to click on his site and his listing eventually goes away for the day but I am not sure if this is even legal. I know I may be able to slow him down for a day but Google will probably give him credit for my repeated hits.
Has anyone had any experience with their site being targeted and what is my best recourse?
Thanks for you help!
What you did is wrong. I will be no surprise if your AdWords account is suspended soon.
I have a couple of clients who are well known leaders in their fields and there have been ads targetting their names for as long as I can remember. To the point that in one case the AdSense adlinks on a client's site almost invariably includes a link that is just her name - which is great for click throughs, so not all bad!
It isn't "nice", but it is not against any terms unless the name of your site is a registered trade mark or brand name in which case you need to take it up with a lawyer.
However clicking on someone's ads to deliberately deplete their account is also not "nice" and may well be illegal or at least likely to cause you problems with Google if you use either AdSense or AdWords.
I don't know what to do and this pisses me off. I can continue to click on his site and his listing eventually goes away for the day but I am not sure if this is even legal. I know I may be able to slow him down for a day but Google will probably give him credit for my repeated hits.Has anyone had any experience with their site being targeted and what is my best recourse?
Your competitor is a smart businessperson...clicking on his ads to cost him money and deplete his daily budget makes you an unethical businessperson. One of my competitors did the same thing to me and I turned the tables on them.
I would imagine he is watching his log files and knows you are click frauding him. All he has to do is report this to google and there is a good chance your organic listing will be banned from the index altogether.
There is an axiom...give a fool enough rope and they will hang themself. I would advise you to stop clicking his ads...buy adwords yourself if it bothers you that much that his ad is listed in your keyword search.
WAR ON!
Competitor's getting "pissed" off and clicking til "their finger is blue" happens to me all the time too. It gives me great joy in reporting them to Google, Because what they are doing IS illegal and "pisses" people like me off.
You're right, the best solution is to bid on your own URL in adwords and ALSO your competitors. Do a turn about on him/her and I'm sure it will work.
Just my two cents from the other side of the fence.
By the way, for the record, I get folks bidding on my URL's all the time. At first I used to get irrate, but I just buy my own domain name keywords and bid high to "fight" back. That's what competition is all about :)
Dave.
its kind of similar to going to a grocery store, asking the owner where he stocks his pepsi, and seeing pepsi, coke, mt. dew, dr pepper, etc, so long as dr. pepper doesnt put a plastic wrapping around it claiming it is in fact pepsi, it is legal.
Why do a silly thing like clicking on a competitor's ads till you run out his budget? Its both illegal and unethical.
Like someone suggested, bid on your own name on Adwords and you will win - you can say something like this is the real site, etc.
With your own domain name there, you should have an advantage.
Please don't click on others' ads as a revenge. This is absolutely childish and may get you into trouble.
In europe google is in loads of court fights over this issue. And they are losing them. You are not allowed to sell traffic that is been mislead into going to another domain. If someone did a search for pepsi, clicked on the adwords ad but goes to coke, what is that?
I have a similar problem with google and a client of mine ( official turist board of a region in Spain) and Ebay (of all people!).
so someone types in that name, and the first organic search result they see is that company name, and the first adwords ad they see is mine, that says something along the lines of,
looking for an alternative to "them" give us a shot, our widgets are cheaper!
of course this is fictitious and made up and all that, however it gives you a way to offer some competition in a legal, and in a manner that serves the customer right. because if that widget company is selling the widget for 10 bucks, and i sell it for 9, then i just helped the customer out.
In TV or radio or press this is not allowed, why in internet?
This is just my 2 cents worth, no more.
I understand that if some has a domain name that is the market generic name for a product this gets complecated, but normally this is not the case.
[google.com...]
yes but a domain name is property
Is it from this perspective, if it is not either a registered trade name or brand name?
The examples of Coke and Pepsi and their ilk are definitely brandnames/tradenames so that is a very specific instance and not confined to Europe. But if my site is called Great Widgets or Pink Widgets or Townsville Widgets, none of which are, or are likely to be eligible to, register as trade or brand names the situation is quite different.
Competitor's getting "pissed" off and clicking til "their finger is blue" happens to me all the time too. It gives me great joy in reporting them to Google, Because what they are doing IS illegal and "pisses" people like me off.
erm, sorry to backtrack a bit, but in what way is clicking on adwords links in a google serp illegal?
it would be against the adsense tos if you clicked ads on your own sites, but clicking ads on google? i've looked and nowhere does it say (that i can see) that clicking on ads with no intention of buying is not allowed, let alone illegal. - childish, waste of time, unethical etc etc but not illegal or against the tos of using the search engine google.
i would be glad to stand corrected on this point.
google will not charge for multiple clicks in this manner so it is a waste of time doing it, but my point is that it is not illegal (as far as i know).
[adwords.google.com...]
childish, waste of time, unethical etc etc but not illegal or against the tos of using the search engine google.
You may depend on Google to sort it out, and indeed they may. Or may not. You cannot be certain of that.
However you do know that clicking on an ad costs the advertiser money. Clicking repeatedly may cost them a lot of money. If you are doing that deliberately then that is stealing money and as far as I know that is illegal pretty much everywhere.
You could of course steal this way and then say in your defence that you believed Google would sort it out, so it wasn't really stealing. I would not like to be going to court with that defence though.
however in this case the questioner did not have an adwords account nor did they run adsense ads on the website, google does not forbid its regular users from clicking ads.
abbeyvet - i'm not a lawyer, so i won't presume to argue with your definition, however i wait eagerly for the first successfull prosecution of somebody for clicking adverts on any of the major search engines search pages.
...
ps. i'm in no way on the side of people who repeatedly click ads, quite the opposite...
- i think it remains a continuing challenge to the search companies to detect it, so much so that ultimately the one that comes up with a near perfect click fraud detection system will dominate the market and get huge benefit, so i'm sure they are working very hard on it.
