Valentine's Day AdWords “War” Among Florists Highlights Another Google Challenge
20.05.12
The technology referred to in this case is Google’s Keyword Insertion capability for advanced users. Advertisers create a single ad for a list of keywords, placing this code — {keyword:default text} — in the place where they’d like the user’s search term to be auto-populated. In this case, keywords for the names of competitors, including Chez Bloom, were apparently used in the list of keywords to be auto-populated. Instead of terms like “Flowers” appearing before the “Sold Out” descriptor, the competitor’s name appeared instead.
Though bidding on competitors’ trademarked keywords, and even using them in ad text, are fair game on Google, the company does have policies preventing false or misleading ad copy. According to a spokesperson, “Google allows advertisers to bid on competitor keywords as well as to use competitor terms in the ad text itself as long as advertisers do not make any false or inaccurate claims in their ads (see more here ). We use a combination of manual and automated processes to enforce this policy. Ads that are found in violation of our policies will be removed.”
Source: Search Engine Land