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August 25, 2004

Using Brands in PPC Search Engine Advertising

Posted by Adam Viener

The debate over using Brand names continues to heat up as a hot topic in the search engine world. On one side you have companies trying to protect their valuable brand assets, and on the other you have affiliates trying to promote the company and competitors pushing their own products.

Should search engines restrict paid (and possibly) organic results when someone types in a brand name on their engines?

What should happen when a company tells their affiliates not to use the brand and then the affiliates start running ads for the company’s products through the Amazon's affiliate program or eBay's? Do a search for Oshkosh on Google for an example.

If you take this beyond the search engine world for a second, if I go to BestBuy and ask to see Toshiba Televisions, should the employee be allowed to show me Sharp TVs?

I plan to delve a lot deeper into this topic over the coming weeks and would love to hear your opinions.