When is it wrong to use a competitors brand name?
-
I recently started with a company who've benefited from using a competitors brand name to explain why theirs is superior.
They're not wrong and neither have they been derogatory, however they have had significant traffic to their website using the competitors branded search terms.
I'm concerned Google will penalise us for this (if so can you point me to case studies/similar examples), or am I worrying unnecessarily?
-
It's something I see a lot of. Only thing you have to worry about is annoying you're competitor to the point where they drive your adspend through the roof and try various ways to catch you're traffic too.
We just had a competitor do something similar. Google wont mind much though
-
In terms of a Google penalty, you have nothing to worry about.
However if you are providing false information about the competitor or writing negatively about them, I'd be more concerned about their response rather than Google's. If not, no worries!
-
Hi,
Thanks but I'm referring to content on our website - blogs, landing and webpages.
The benefit is that we attract traffic we wouldn't otherwise be able to do (we're using someone else's well known brand name), then have the opportunity to convert it in to our own sale
Lisa
-
Hi Lisa,
If you are asking about Google AdWords campaign then you can use competitors brand as keyword but you can't use in Ad copy but if you are asking about SEO then Google does NOT police this. So in the SEO sense you can use that and you won't be penalize.
What would be the benefit because a great effort required to rank competitors keyword and if your sites getting visits from those searches most probably bounce rate would be very high I have seen this in Adwords campaign by using competitors keywords?
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to use long-tail keywords in my blog posts?
I'm using wordpress for my blog and yoast plugin for seo. recently i read a tutorial about "long-tail keyword" usage. but i get confused when i want to use them in my blog posts. take this long-tail keyword: best gaming mouse and keyboard for ps4 Imaging i want to use this as my primary keyword(focus keyword) in my blog post. how should i use it in post title and other parts of my article? -should i use it in the exact same order in my title or post?
Keyword Research | | jessica45
-how to use it in yoast keyphrase input? should i use exact match of the focus keyphrase in the input? as you know Google is capable of recognizing the separate words from longer search terms, even if the words are not in the exact same order as the query. I searched many days but unfortunately i couldn't find anything about how to use keyword or long-tail keyword inside the article step by step.0 -
When I use the Google search console to discover keyword phrases being used to drive visitors to my site I see some keywords that have the city name repeated (ex: web design sarasota sarasota, fl). Why?
When I use the Google search console to discover keyword phrases being used to drive visitors to my site I see some keywords that have the city name repeated (ex: web design sarasota sarasota, fl). Why does this happen?
Keyword Research | | Noblemoz1 -
How do I enter my own keywords to better my listing on google, using Squarespace?
I'm trying to use better keywords on my Squarespace website but can't quite figure out how to plug in my own using the site. I'm trying to improve my ranking on my google listing. Any help would be very much appreciated! (Sorry, I'm new to this!)
Keyword Research | | CloudJammer0 -
Optimizing Webpages for Keywords- Using Text Links to Distribute Internal Page Rank
My Manhattan based commercial real estate firm hired an SEO firm. The company conducted a content audit, created a keyword matrix and suggested optimizing 51 pages for specific keywords. A specific price per page was quoted, which I understand and accept. I was under thought that setting up internal text links to redistribute page rank and thereby improve ranking for competitive terms was included in the price. But this task was not included in their quote. I really want to avoid getting nickeled and dimed to death. Should this cost be included, or legitimately is setting up the internal link structure something that is an additional expense? If this task is legitimately an extra, how labor intensive is it? A lit bit of extra time when re-writing pages or a completely different task that would be quite time consuming? Also, I believe the flow of page rank within a site can have a big effect on ranking, so setting up internal links is critical. Are these assumptions correct? For some background, www.nyc-officespace-leader.com gets 4,500 organic visits per month. Google Page Rank is 2 and the site was hit by Panda in 2012 but has partially recovered. I would really appreciate some insight from the MOZ community. I do not want to pay too much or too little for these services. THANKS, Alan
Keyword Research | | Kingalan10 -
How do you compare results using different tools?
We are looking at SEO as ways of promoting our online flip page travel magazine but its really difficult to distinguish the good from the bad and the downright ugly in terms of agencies to use. For example we are proposing to use an SEO agency who have come up with a long list of interesting keywords. The problem is that the degree of competitiveness which is listed alongside each keyword varies dramatically from the results I achieved by keying in the same keywords into the moz keyword tool. The agency says their results are achieved by using Google tools. Any advice on what to do would be really welcome. The website is www.eurotravelmag.com and the flip page magazine can be reached here: www.eurotravelmag.com/current Thanks David
Keyword Research | | davidgjacobs0 -
What Tools Can Be Used To Determine Kw's I Should Be Optimizing For ?
What Tools Can Be Used To Determine Kw's I Should Be Optimizing For ? My concern is that I may be optimizing certain pages with wrong kw phrases and building backlinks to wrong kw phrases that are not a good conversion keyword for the services that I am selling. What are the various ways and tools that can be used to determine if I am optimizing for the right kw's phrases and not the wrong ones that will not convert into a lead from the optin form. I am wondering if ppc spy tools such as spyfu, semrush help me identify if I in fact am opitimizing for the right kw's ?
Keyword Research | | helpwanted0 -
Domain Name - Which is better?
I had a friend of mine ask me this question and I didn't really know how to go about answering. He wants to know if, for example, www.cardealer.net is better than www.car-dealer.com or vice-versa? Both seem to be interchangeable to me. I hate websites with dashes in them but obviously it is necessary in some cases... ".net" is not my favorite either. What would you recommend?
Keyword Research | | PMC-3120870
