Other site using my URL as their dispay URL

Adwords refuses to t do anything

[Leva]

Long story short, I have other sites using my site's URL as the display URL on advertising. Clicking on the ads takes users to the other site.

I've complained and complained at Adsense. They have now advised me that they will do nothing and I need to take it up directly with the other site(s). Despite the TOS that says that other sites can't do this.

They offered to forward my complaint e-mails to the other site -- a scammy MFA site which is blatantly perpetuating fraud (advertising versions of software that aren't released yet, pretending to be an official download site) and appears to be doing click arbitration. I said NO. That sets me up for a click attack or a ddos attack.

I am beating my head against the wall here. They told me they can't stop another site from using my "trademark" but I know for a fact they CAN -- my URL has the name of a well-known software product in it purely by chance and every single ad I post for ME for MY SITE when I OWN MY SITE has to be manually approved. So why are they manually approving these MFA sites? (I registered the domain -- the name of an animal -- several years before the software product existed.)

Among other things, by using my URL:

1) They make it look like they're an official site of the software maker (I'm not, but it looks official)

2) If people realize it's a scam, they ban MY url from the site, not the destination url.

I don't want to directly contact these idiots. Anyone have any suggestions for making Google enforce their TOS?

Leva

[sem4u]

Why not contact the producers of the software? I am sure they would be interested to see what is going on here.

[Leva]

I'm sure the software maker knows. You enter the name of the software in google at this ad pops up in the advertising block. And there's been longstanding issues because there's a profitable affiliate program associated with the software.

Leva

[netmeg]

I've complained and complained at Adsense.

You mean AdWords, right?

[robertskelton]

Doesn't sound right to me... I complain about false display URLs to AdWords almost every day, and they always disapprove the offending ad.

Can't imagine Google refusing to do anything about an ad that breaks their guidelines.

Are you sure it is the Display URL you are talking about?

[La_Valette]

I thought Adwords automatically disapproved destination urls mismatching their display urls

[robertskelton]

Google staff should disapprove of the ad when they spot false display URLs, but I guess they work so quickly that they often don't spot minor differences

[La_Valette]

I don't see why a few lines of code couldn't do this automatically and without errors...

[robertskelton]

I guess that they don't want to upset big companies that utilise exceptions to the rule.

For example, if Open Directory owned dmoz.org and opendir.com, and both had the same content, Google would let them use one as the destination URL, and the other as the display URL

[netmeg]

They do allow different urls in some cases, because I took over an account for one of my clients where it was set up this way. They have thousands of products and at least five different domain names all pointing to their site (which is another problem altogether I'm trying to get them to fix) and they were allowed to use one display domain for, say, sporting goods, and one of their other domain names for teaching materials, and so on - but their destination urls all go through the main (company name) domain/url. Actually, I'm trying to fix all this mess, but they don't host with me and it was set up wrong in the first place, so there are issues.

[poster_boy]

While exceptions may exist, there should really be a way to proactively ban unauthorized use of any URL. Why couldn't Google offer this option to advertisers? If it was available as an opt-in, sites with unique tracking needs or open affiliate programs could ignore the option and allow the practice, while those interested in protecting their URL from unauthorized use or rogue affiliates could be protected.

Such a program would eliminate this brand of deception and would be in the best interest of Google's two primary customers - advertisers and users.

[JustGirl]

urgh I'm dealing with a very similar issue. My display URL is my site, and my competitor is using my URL minus WWW.
Ex:

My AD
yadda yadda yadd
more yaddas
www.WidgetWorld.com

Their Ad
their yaddas
their yaddas
WidgetWorld.com

I thought this was against guidelines. The ads don't show up on the same page for a keyword, but on page 1 & 2. (Thankfully I'm #1)

I also have problems with Affiliates using www.WidgetWorld.com with redirects to their site. I can make them stop - but monitoring it is a pain.

[WeaselyOne]

I agree with others here that it seems very strange Google would not be taking care of that issue.

My experience has always been that they held up my ads for far less blatant issues until someone looked over it manually.

hmmmm