Listing Competitor Names In Keywords, Is this ethical? Just plain smart? Options

[CTMiguel]

Hello - I'm new to this forum and want to thank everyone for all the valuable information. While looking at a competitors website, and their keywords, I noticed that they listed 3 other company names, which was their competition? This didn't seem right to me, but I'm just starting out. Is this common practice? Is it ethical? Is it something I should avoid?

Thanks so much.

[Randy]

Welcome CTMiguel ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hi.gif)

Are you saying that this competitor has this info in a Meta Keywords tag?

If so, it doesn't really matter since the major engines all ignore the meta keywords tag. And have for years.

If it's visible text on the page it's a whole other ballgame. Whether it's ethical or not, or whether it should be done or not is one of those It Depends things. If you're offering a visible comparison it might be ethical and may even be a good thing to do. However in most cases this type of visible comparison usually isn't the smartest thing to do if you don't have an overriding reason to do so. From the marketing perspective if you don't out and out beat the competition it's more than a bit silly to give your potential customers a clear pointer to someone else's business that is a direct competitor.

[qwerty]

I did that on the very first site I ever worked on, back around 1999 or 2000. I put the names of competitors and their products into our meta keywords tag, thinking I was going to steal their traffic. Of course it accomplished nothing, and looked a bit spammy (if anybody ever looked).

If the keyword tag is the only place their competition's names appear, they're about as smart as I was eight years ago (IMG:style_emoticons/default/searchme.gif)

[Jill]

It is trademark infringement, imo, if they're using them in their meta keyword tag without a reason to. I would suggest contacting an attorney and having he/she send them a cease and desist letter.

As Randy said, it won't make a difference anyway, but today the meta keyword tag, and who knows where they may infringe on your trademark in the future.

[RiYo]

Jill, just out of pure interest. You say that it sounds like 'trademark infringement' ... but is that not only the case when the company has registered their business name as a trademark. The majority of companies do not register their business name as far as I know, at least I hardly ever see the 'tm' mark behind a business name. Of course you see it with the big brands, but the small to mid-sized companies? I must be honest I have no clue how this works legally.

richard

[Randy]

It's a legal question that would have to be asked of an attorney, however what you're asking generally falls into what I've seen referred to as Trade Name, Inherent Trademark and/or Common-law protections. Most states in the US and in some instances the US Federal Gov't offer such protections to businesses for their Trade Name.

FWIW, the reason they use Trade Name is that a company may be registered in their state or with the IRS as one name, but have a DBA where they're using a totally different name. Most times such protections (if available) are enforced by going to a state court, as opposed to a federal court. Which raises an ugly spector. Since Trade Names are registered at the state level, and the states registration serves as constructive notice to other people in that state you'd probably have a pretty good case if someone from your same state were to use your stete-registered trade name. However, since each state could have the same company or trade name registered, your case wouldn't necessarily hold water trying to sue someone from other state. Let alone another country.

It's always best to go through the hassle of getting a trademark registered for real, meaning at at least the national level. And in other countries if you're doing business in those countries. It's really up to the company to protect their own trade name. If they neglect to do so, they only have themselves to blame.

On the other hand, having a lawyer send someone a cease and desist many times works because it's simply not worth the court battle. Especially if the recipient would have to travel to another state/country to defend something that's not doing them any good in the first place.

All from my non-legal point of view of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif)

[Jill]

I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is similar to Randy's.