YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE!
I have a client, let’s call them the Friendly Brothers. They provide a specific service in my geographic region. They have only one big competitor – let’s call them the Gorillas.
In all my years I’ve never seen anything as down and dirty – and stupid – as what the Gorillas have been up to.
The Friendly Brothers and I caught them running PPC ads using the Friendly Brothers’ trademarked business name. We caught them in the act, and used our handy-dandy “Print Screen” button. We now have permanent proof of it.
For that particular problem, a Cease and Desist appears to have made the ads go away – so far.
Then, I discovered that when you do a search for the Friendly Brothers dot.com, some very suspicious-looking results pages were coming up in the Top 10 listings. The listed pages contained my Friendly Brothers’ business name, but the URLS were definitely not related to our site or any SEO work we’d done.
Like a hound who’s just been shown a pile of Gorilla poop, I was on the trail.
Turns out these Top 10 listings were originating from a Classifieds website in Canada. There were a dozen or so ads on this site, advertising the same service, using my client’s business name, and a telephone number that “just happened to” be exactly the same as my client’s, except for the area code. And this info was showing up in the search engine results.
We decided to call the number. What we got was a residence, and the mumbled explanation was that the husband “used to be” in this business but wasn’t anymore – we could call again after he got home from work and talk to him.
Now, it is possible that it is a coincidence. I guess. But I’m not falling for it.
Fortunately the classifieds site has links for reporting spam and illegal/infringing ads. So far, we haven’t been able to backtrack the actual Gorilla that placed the ads – and they could have used a mule anyway.
The Friendly Brothers and I are still on the trail, and it’s a hot one.
The moral of the story is that if you try any of these stupid tricks, you can be easily found out AND find some letters from lawyers in your mailbox.
In this day and age, establishing your Brand and Credibility is critical on the web. Protect those assets. Be vigilant! It’s a jungle out there 
on Nov 29th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Fiona, sounds like ‘Friendly Brothers’ has the perfect person on the job!
You are going beyond SEM, but then again, perhaps all SEM’s can take a lesson from you, and treat your client sites like it’s your site. Great work! Please keep us posted on the outcome.
Ty
on Nov 29th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Do you really think I’m going above and beyond responsibilities of SEM? I see Internet Marketing as covering brand name and identity protection amongst all the other things we need to do. Who else will know how to monitor and track things down, or expedite a complaint with the big SE’s?
I think in many ways, Search Engine Marketing and Internet Marketing are coming around full circle to what ad agencies did in the past – establish brand, identity and credibility – then defend it. And with new innovations in social media marketing, including Google’s personal Wiki, we are challenged even more to cover a lot of ground!
on Nov 29th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
You are dead on for sure. I guess that’s what I meant by us taking this as an example. We are their protector, because as you said there is no one skilled enough to uncover ‘predators’ or inadvertent advertisers seeking to smear identity.
In fact, we should all perhaps add that to our profiles, and services don’t you think? “Branding and Identity” Defenders thereof?
We have so much work to do……:)