Should I compete on my own domain name as a keyword?

[MediaSpree]

A competitor is advertising using my domain name as a key word of theirs. Lets say my site was toasters.com (its not) Their ad, when you type type toasters.com into google, shows up first as "Toasters.com?" being the headline and then goes into how you shoudl buy their toasters. Now, every other regular link on the page is mine, or in someway a link to my site, but it irks me that they a) can do this and b) show up first. To experiemnt I have been running a campaign with the headline "The REAL Toasters.com" -Don't be fooled by imitators- (etc.) and only showing the ad for the keyword toasters.com. The click through rate is HUGE 70+% but of course I am PAYing for these clicks just to defend my domain. The cost isn't astronomical but its a cost I feel I should not have to bear. Is it ok for them to advertise using my (albeit untrademarked) name to fool potential customers to their site?

[edited by: MediaSpree at 11:35 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2008]

[Rehan]

In the US & Canada, Google doesn't prevent advertisers from using trademarked terms as keywords. So there's not much you can do to stop your competitor from bidding on your domain name.

If you're getting a high CTR on your own ad, you'll find that the CPC will soon drop to $0.01. Yes, that's still more than $0.00...but it's probably the least worst option.

One thing you can hope for is that the CTR and quality score of your competitor drop enough that it becomes prohibitively expensive for them to advertise on the term (that's why you typically don't see ads on terms like 'myspace', for example). Running your own PPC ad will increase at least a little bit the chance of that happening.

[smallcompany]

Few points:

- As Rehan said, it is worth to be there, and your cost should not be any high. Consider it as a regular part of your marketing.
- After some time they may disappear anyway - by seeing you there, by being squeezed out by Google (lower CTR, pushed onto side and having CTR of i.e. 0.89%, even getting hit by minimum bid, etc.)
- Keep in mind that no matter how well you are doing in organic results, there are always some clicks that always go to paid ads, don’t ask why. Some folks never click onto paid, and vise versa.
- While you can’t say anything to Google, you can contact those guys directly. Many companies have their or contracted lawyers watching their TMs and site names all the time. If someone shows up, they ask them to stop, those usually lie about broad match and “blah, blah”, and finally end up by being asked to enter domain.com as negative.
- If it boils down to being non TM term, can you register it? Think about if it is worth of doing it? Long term?

[RhinoFish]

The can bid on it as a keyword, but if you register it and let G know through their process, then your competitor won't be able to use your name in their ad's text, driving their CTR way down, driving their costs way up and mostly solving this for you.