Hi All - Hoping for some insight from anyone who may have run into this before. This may be the wrong forum, but has the most traction and does relate to Google search. I'll try to keep it short, while explaining clearly.
7 years ago, I launched a services website in a high value, high CPC ad, market. I did this by creating a Portmanteau styled Brand, which combines two common words into a more catchy, single word. For this example, I'll use the word "Mockumentary", which combines Mock and documentary. Fast forward to now, and we are in the final steps of a Trademark being approved for our service/brand within the next 30-days (It's been a long road!). FWIW, I market the business solely on the Portmanteau .com domain, but also own the very high volume, two-word .com phrase that makes up the phrase.
People actively seek out our branded and pending TM'd word when searching for us in G. The market is highly competitive and spawns just about every type of high CPC ad you could imagine Google making use of, when the generic meaning of the two words are queried without the use of our brand. People searching for this are the very bottom of the sales funnel, ready to buy or use the service-typre as well, so you can imagine the serp manipulation and widgetry that occurs. As of yet, I have not used PPC "branding" ads since the TM is not completed and I want to be able to fight it effectively when it does become official.
The problem I have is that Google completely changes the query on each and every search, for those that include our brand. Using mockumentary again as an example, if anyone searched for battleship mockumentary, Google changes the query to "Did you mean: battleship documentary" and leaves no way to force a correct set of results of the intended query. Even adding quotes around the query, returns the same correction and of course, all of the ads.
How do I combat this once the trademark is approved? Will branded PPC ads work to eliminate this, or does this need to be much more aggressively pursued via legal action? Right now, we see less than 1,000 branded searches each month, but after the TM and subsequent PR and marketing, I imagine it's going to be much higher. I need people to find our website, versus having Google change the query and send them through the ad jungle the serps represent.
Thanks in advance and if you've fought the same thing, insight is much appreciated.
