Google To Allow Trademarks To Be Used In AdWords Copy In Canada, the UK and Ireland

Google announced starting on September 14th, UK, Canadian and Ireland advertisers can use trademarked keywords in their ad text. This is a policy that was adopted in the U.S. on May 14, 2009 and is now being adopted in the UK, Canadian and Ireland. In addition, advertisers on September 14th can now select trademarks as […]

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Google announced starting on September 14th, UK, Canadian and Ireland advertisers can use trademarked keywords in their ad text.

This is a policy that was adopted in the U.S. on May 14, 2009 and is now being adopted in the UK, Canadian and Ireland.

In addition, advertisers on September 14th can now select trademarks as keywords to bid on and then use those keywords in their ad text. This is a major change to the UK, Canadian and Ireland policy and Google has created a document explaining the changes.

Why? Google said:

We believe the right approach is to give users more choices and access to as much information as is relevant to their search or interest. This policy change balances the needs of our users while ensuring that competitive, critical, or negative uses of the trademark in ad text continue to be reviewed and removed per our trademark policy.

When can’t you use trademarked keywords in your ad text? Google said:

Ads using the term in a competitive, critical, or negative way will not be allowed to run with the term at issue in their ad. Additionally, we will not allow the following:

– ads that do not lead to a landing page that clearly facilitates the sale of either the goods and services corresponding to the trademark or parts or components related to the goods and services corresponding to the trademark

– competitive or critical information about the goods and services corresponding to a trademark

– ads that do not lead to a landing page which provides substantive information about the goods and services corresponding to a trademark

For more details, please see the change document.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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