Googles "relevant" ads theory

[Del Boy]

Just recently I was checking our trade marked keyword and how they were doing and I noticed a slight $ increase in some of our trade mark variations. I searched for the variation and saw no ads except ours but when I searched for “health insurance” and then straight after that search typed in the trade mark variation I got 4 more ads.

When I called our account manager he confirmed that because the searcher first looked for health insurance then used a trade mark variation they would include other ads from the original search (as long as the second search was relevant to the category)!!!!!!

This is CRAZY as the ads that are displayed are not even targeting the keyword variation. Google puts them there as it sees the ad to be relevant to the search???

Can anyone explain how this makes sense? How can Google justify these advertisers possibly getting rewarded for simply being in the same category? These advertisers that Google see as relevant may even benefit from the money we spent on branding?

Does anyone else find this strange?

[Mel66]

Welcome to Google Personalized Search....

[AussieWebmaster]

Google is following the person and then using the previous search queries to populate the paid results

[abbottsys]

Welcome to Google Personalized Search....
Indeed. First the ads, and then the organics? :)

[misterjezmond]

I am guessing you don't have any trademark protection in place?

[Del Boy]

we have trade mark protection on our trade mark term however for trade mark variations there is no protection. So if my companys name was "awebpage" i don't have protection on "a webpage" or "a-webpage"

[misterjezmond]

You should have protection!

We have a number of clients who have had similar problems. Some competitors have been bidding on terms with spaces inbetween the word. Google have provided us with protection against those logical variations on our trademarks.

[jimbeetle]

Some competitors have been bidding on terms with spaces inbetween the word. Google have provided us with protection against those logical variations on our trademarks.
When did they start this? Are you sure it's for bidding on a trademarked term, or is it for its use in the ad text?

[AussieWebmaster]

Depends on the country - the US has one set of rules and most of Europe another

[misterjezmond]

Sorry, I didn't mention I was in the UK

This is for both Ad Text and Keywords

[AussieWebmaster]

UK can have Google pull down anyone advertising for their trademarked terms - not just ads mentioning them but the actual keyword

[AdWordsRep]

Here's some info from the AdWords Help Center for those who are intersted in digging into the question of trademark 'protection':

Trademarks
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47165

How do I file a trademark complaint in the U.S. or Canada?
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50006

How do I file a trademark complaint outside the U.S. and Canada?
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50007

AWR

[AussieWebmaster]

I have them bookmarked now for future answers

[jimbeetle]

Thanks for reminding me that the U.S. ain't the whole world. ;-) Now I just have to get it into my head that there actually is something west of the Hudson River.