Posted by BrendaTx on 12/6/13 7:34pm
Msg #495373

Be careful with keyword usage.

*In May, a judge found that Marks & Spencer's use of "Interflora" in Google AdWords, to produce results for its own service, infringed trademarks belonging to the flower delivery network.*

A few years back, I discovered that a certain company was using the phrase "Notary Rotary" in its keywords for google ads. If memory serves, I let Harry know and he had it stopped.

According to this article, last year a judge determined that this kind of keyword placement is trademark infringement.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/nov/30/lush-amazon-trademark-court-battle

Be careful with keywords and using someone else's name or business name in your SEO keywords and don't be shy in demanding that others not use your own name or name of your business similarly.

Reply by Notarysigner on 12/7/13 7:40am
Msg #495411

Thanks Brenda, I would suppose this also affects "aliases" also?

Reply by C. Rivera Chicago Notary Services on 12/7/13 8:49am
Msg #495420

I'm not going to be held responsible for using keywords

suggested to me to use. I use various SEO products which allow you to see the highest rated or searched words come up when you use certain keywords on your website.

How can I be held responsible for choosing keywords that are common words found on the Internet?

Ridiculous!

Reply by JanetK_CA on 12/8/13 5:40pm
Msg #495524

Re: I

There's a big difference between trademarks (which are likely all over the internet) and other common terms. Most of the time, I think it should be obvious if the word is capitalized and is the name of a company or product or brand. Others may not be so obvious, but when in doubt, the internet is also there to check it out. It shouldn't be that hard to find out. I did a quick search on "Interflora", for example, and it became evident within seconds that that was a company brand.

So ultimately, I agree that we do need to be responsible for whatever content we put on our individual sites. If it's a template sold by some companies where you just fill in your personal info and they provide the rest of it for a fee, with an extension from their own domain, that's a different kettle of fish, since there are likely parts we can't control. But where we have our own domain, and we control the content - and keywords - we need to be careful and make that extra effort.

I think this was great advice by Brenda.

Reply by Michelle/AL on 12/7/13 6:18pm
Msg #495462

Good advice, Brenda. Thank you. n/m