Keyword Restrictions

September 25, 2007 on 11:12 pm | In Questions and Comments | 2 Comments

Hi Tony, great book I really enjoyed it and wil be sure to write a review on Amazon. 

Speaking of Amazon and Ebay and others, I am finding all the fineprint and keyword restrictions to be a real headache.  Just to be clear, if you use “restricted keywords” the affiiliate program can simply not pay you commissions correct?  Is there any thing else they can do like sue you or something else nasty?  It’s like they don’t want referrals or something.

Here is my question:  If you use restricted keywords in a campaign but don’t belong to the affiliate program restricting them is this a problem?  For example if you do NOT belong to any Ebay affiliate program, but use the term “ebay” or some variation of it to promote an entirely different program, is this a problem?  I realize these terms are trademarked but you are not using them in an ad just as keywords, so what are the ramifications?

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  1. Some of this does depend on the search engine you are using to display your ads. On Google, for example, bidding on someone else’s trademark (ie. “ebay”) is not prohibited. What IS prohibited is if you use that person/company’s trademark in your AdCopy (ie. “Find out the latest eBay deals”). On some engines, like MSN, an advertiser can protect their trademarked terms/phrases by filing for trademark protection. On MSN, this protects from other advertisers to even bid on your trademarked terms/keywords.

    Bottom line, no ramifications will come as long as you’re not using trademarked terms/names/phrases in your adcopy. Albeit, if you belong to an affiliate network there may include ramifications. Follow ’search etiquette’ and use your copy to be your strength.

    - Paid Search “wanna be” Genious

    Comment by Jackal22xx — September 26, 2007 #

  2. You are correct that they can refuse payment, but they are unlikely to sue you since not paying you pretty much guarantees you’ll stop.

    As for usng others trademarks (like bidding on Amazon, and running an ad for Barnes & Noble) this shouldn’t cause you any problems with the affiliate programs or the search engines, but it is VERY difficult to get a person who is looking for one company (like Amazon) to change their mind and try another company (like Barnes and Noble). Also, the small percentage of people you do convince to visit the other company are less likely to purchase than buyers you direct to the company the believed they wanted in the first place. Your sending some pretty wishy washy traffic, in other words.

    I don’t think there is much money to be made in talking people out of the Trademarked company they were looking for in the first place, but who knows, there may be exceptions.

    Tony

    Comment by Administrator — September 27, 2007 #

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