Ethics questions / discussion on SEO
-
Please forgive me if I'm asking too many questions. I'm new to MOZ and have a little bit of experience with SEO, but not that much at all.
The question of the day pertains to using keywords that refer to another brand in order to bring search traffic to your site as well as compete on searches against your competitor.
I'm certain this is not a unique case, however; it's early in the morning and my brain isn't working well enough to come up with a comparable example, so I will use my own situation.
"Pop Warner" is a youth football brand. It's been around since 1929 and it's synonymous with youth football now. If someone is looking for a place to enroll their children, they will typically search for "%Town_Name%" + "Pop Warner" Pop Warner however; is not the only national governing body for youth football. The association (company) that I'm doing work for is an American Youth Football Program.
Now, is it considered bad form, evil or whatever to optimize using a term such as "Pop Warner" on my site if I'm NOT affiliated with pop warner whatsoever? If the answer is yes, can you provide me with direction as to how this should be handled? If no...than I know how to handle it.
-
What a great discussion going on here on this one! Love our community:)
My thoughts on this are:
-
I agree with Donna's suggestion of seeking legal advice on this before you begin using another brand's name on your website.
-
If you are legally advised that it's okay to do so, then the comparison model is a legitimate topic for content development. Explaining the differences between your organization and that of your better known competitor will be educational for parents and guardians considering their local options for youth sports. This will be good information for them to have.
I would suggest approaching this very mindfully and with full transparency that your organization is completely separate from Pop Warner and has no affiliation with this organization. Your strategy must have education as its basis in order to avoid the totally unwanted outcome of local parents deciding you are trying to trick them into thinking your organization is anything other than what it truthfully is - that's certainly not going to be the start of a happy relationship! After all, what you really want here is for your organization to build up a brand that earns local recognition as a wonderful option for youth sports. You don't want to build Pop Warner's brand - you want to build your own.
-
-
I suggest you get some legal advice before you start using "Pop Warner" without their permission, even when you're being clear, as others have suggested, that you're an alternative and not an affiliate.
I'm not a lawyer, I just know clients who have received cease and desist letters when they used another company's brand name when trying to position their website in search results. The brand name could be interpreted as everyday language - "sell my house" for example. They ran into problems when they used it in their domain, title tags and page headings.
I recommend erring on the side of caution or speaking with a lawyer before potentially overstepping. Even if you're totally in the right, it could take a lot of time and money to sort it all out if you're perceived as crossing the line. Who needs that? If money is a concern, maybe there's a parent in your organization that has the legal expertise you seek?
-
I agree with Kingof5.
Don't impersonate another brand or mislead in any way. Instead, create content that distinguishes you and what you offer from "Pop Warner". You could use the phrase "Pop Warner Club Alternative" and still be optimized for "Pop Warner".
Just be clear you aren't them. And be honest with anything you say about them.
-
Mr. Menke (and everyone else),
I sincerely thank you all for taking the time to address my question. I don't think that inviting people to view the competition is that big of a deal because of the synonymous nature of the activity/service and the branding. I can't imagine doing the same thing for my small web firm...I wouldn't put my competitors name or information on my site or in my search terms because yes...people might be searching for "My Town Web Design" and somehow stumble upon a page that actually ends up referring them to my competition.
In this case, people who are not familiar with youth football will likely search for "My Town Pop Warner" when what they really mean is "My Town Youth Football". Anyone who has a son who plays football or a daughter who cheers (or vice versa), can understand and appreciate the difference between Pop Warner and American Youth Football. My chief concern however; is that if I do not have something on my site that provides competition to "My Town Pop Warner" I'm potentially missing out on people who will sign up for Pop Warner never having known that there are alternatives.
-
Upper Cape,
In most cases, there is absolutely nothing wrong with content that compares your value, feature, benefits to your competitors'. Doing so gives you the opportunity to use their name in your content and even in your title, e.g. optimize with/for the competitor's name. It's a double edge sword though, because it means that if visitors find you first for that content, you're inviting them to check out your competitors.
-
It's totally fine. Optimize for the term and have the landing page be a page on your site explaining the difference between and benefits of your league vs. Pop Warner.
Zappos does a similar thing with coupons - http://www.zappos.com/truth-about-zappos-coupons
-
I'm not trying to pass myself off as another company per se. Let me try to explain just a little more because I feel as though I failed initially.
Pop Warner is a national brand with thousands of INDEPENDENT local participants who participate in the Pop Warner program. Assume that your town doesn't have a youth football program, you could file the paperwork with the state, incorporate as "Company_XYZ, Inc" with the purpose of athletics and then contact the regional Pop Warner league and ask for admittance into their conference, which would give you the opportunity to play against other towns.
You'd likely setup a site as "My_Town Pop Warner.com" and do business as "My Town Pop Warner" rather than Company_XYZ (the legal / corporate entity).
Now, with all of that said, the term "Pop Warner" has become synonymous with youth football at pretty much all levels. "My Town Youth Football" is a good search term but "My Town Pop Warner" is also a very popular search term. "Pee Wee Football" might also be a decent one although I haven't heard many people use that phrase lately.
So the question is...if I have a site that offers youth football to MY TOWN but we're not a Pop Warner ball club, is it wrong to optimize a page for "My Town Pop Warner" regardless of the actual content of the page. I'm not trying to "trick" people into believing that this site is a pop warner site. The angle here would be to show people who are otherwise unaware that there is an alternative to "My Town Pop Warner.com"
-
To be brief:
You get people and other brands paying and bidding on Adwords to appear next to a competitor when people search for that competitor.
I don't see why SEO should be any different (ethically).
Whether it's feasible and worth your time optimise, however, that's different.
-
Hi,
Trying to pass yourself off as another company is never good in anyone's eyes - especially Google's. Keywords are based around your own phrase requirements and where Google thinks that you should appear for them.
Can I ask, are you looking to rank for the Pop Warner phrase, or something else? A brand is always going to rank well for a phrase that includes that name - it would be a bit of a slog to try and knock them off really.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does a lot of Google Business Account create website SEO keyword spam?
Hi, I have an SEO client from Abu Dhabi and when I handover the project - they got only one Google My business page. One month after SEO keyword rankings found to be great. However, from last week onwards, I have noted keywords ranking is dropping.When I checked with their map - one of the keyword map rankings also lost.When I cross-checked their listing - it has been showing -they listed 8 Google my business verification.Using the same website and same phone number - just to make their presence all over Abu Dhabi.My question is -does this affect SEO keyword ranking?
Local Listings | | Navya12340 -
Google My Business marker/pin - Do I have control over moving it?
I am working with a country club. We opened the Google my business account and Moz Local. i think the developer/builder of the Country Club planned on the address being in different place than it is today. Do I have control over moving that marker on this massive property. Or, is this done at the city/county level? The marker isn't quite near the building or the true entrance to the country club.
Local Listings | | Joseph.Lusso0 -
Did anybody else notice a big change in local/map results in late Jan early Feb
Hi, We work on quite a few local campaigns for clients and saw a fair bit of movement in the UK in late January/early February. Did anybody else notice this? Some of ours have improved, some have lost out, but the results generally seem to have shifted against usual guidelines for listing optimisation (reviews, local phone numbers, consistency with website etc.). Any thoughts? Thanks
Local Listings | | jasarrow0 -
Local SEO
Hi I'm interested in renting a live work loft in a location where I would like to also do business out of. And I do understand that I would list the business as a service type business. But I wanted to know if I would be doing things correctly by doing that? And yes I'm in the kind of business that can be listed as a service type business.
Local Listings | | LittleDog0 -
Unable to update client address in G+/Moz Local
Hello, I'm having an issue with Moz Local that involves a few complicating factors. I have a client who has moved to a new office and I was hoping to use Moz Local to help keep their NAP consistent during the transition. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the Google+ page that was set up for the business (and neither does my client). The client is relatively new, so we suspect the page was set up by the person/agency that set up their website previously. And since Moz Local gets the business address from the Google+ page it finds, and I can't access that page to change its address, I can't update the address in Moz Local. I DO have access to the client's website and Facebook account, and have already updated their listed address on those pages, but the Google+ page seems to still be a problem for verification. One of the other wrinkles is that since I have updated the Facebook page to show the new address, Moz Local has picked that up as a completely separate listing (a listing that uses an "and" instead of an "&" in the name). I was hoping to claim/verify THAT listing and see if I could merge the 2, but this other listing shows up as a separate purchase on Moz Local. I would prefer not to have to pay twice for the same listing, if at all possible. I would try to change the Facebook page name to use "&" instead of "and" in the hopes that Moz Local might recognize that it's the same business, but it looks like Facebook only allows you to change a page's name once, and I don't want to burn what might be needed to solve some other future problem. Lastly, the Moz Local listings are under another Moz account. I DO have access to that account, and can provide any specifics to the Moz staff if needed. To sum up: I can't change an address on Google+ and therefore cannot change the address on Moz Local. I'm not sure if this is a Moz Local issue, a Google+ issue, or (most likely) an issue on both ends, so any suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks!
Local Listings | | BrianAlpert780 -
Google Local: When moving locations, is a new website/content needed?
I've effectively moved companies before, but I've heard that ranking locally in a competitive market after an address move it is necessary to redesign the entire website/content/domain as Google associates the old website/content/domain with the old location. Is this true? Does anyone have any direct experience with this? NOTE- I have updated citations across the internet and have regular social signals going to the new location, and this has been the case for almost 6 months now.
Local Listings | | mgordon0 -
Local SEO: How many consistent citations needed to rank
Hello, Can you guys analyze this site and see how many (quality, consistent) citations they'll need to rank 1st (in local results) for the two following local terms: weight loss salt lake city hypnosis salt lake city website: The Brain Trainer LLC www.expandingpotentials.net Thank you
Local Listings | | BobGW0 -
SEO ROI for brick-and-mortar small business?
So I've just been contracted to do some on-page and local SEO for a number of websites, and aside from analytics, I don't know how to prove the ROI. Any thoughts on that? For example, how do I prove a restaurant is getting more customers because I optimized their website and established and enhanced local listings (or if that's even the case)? How would I measure that success, especially if there are other variables (maybe they're also kicking off some off-line marketing in tandem ... )
Local Listings | | sbs2190