Brand Jacking: The importance of Protecting Your Brand Name in Search Engines

If you’re doing a PPC (pay per click) campaign for your business, chances are you are focusing mostly on specific keywords to bring new traffic to your site. This is important, but you shouldn’t forget about buying branded search terms to protect your brand name from brand jacking.

Brand jacking is when someone camps on your brand name in search ads, in an attempt to drive people away from your business. If it seems like a sleazy move, that’s because it is. Luckily for us, Google’s quality score metric makes it cheaper for you to buy your brand name than the guy who’s trying to steal it. So, with any luck, you’ll be able to buy your name for $.20 a click while your competitor has to pay $1 a click.

The problem arises when a company doesn’t buy its brand name and a competitor successfully brand jacks it for an extended period of time. The reason this is an issue is because when a competitor gets clicks with their search ad, Google sees them as the most relevant option. So even if a company starts buying its own name, they have an uphill battle until Google realizes they are the rightful owner of the brand term.

Thankfully, it’s easy to combat this. If you manage a SEM or PPC campaign, stop reading right now and go buy your brand term. We’ve seen too many clients who didn’t want to spend $.20 a click on their brand name, and now have to spend $2 a click to overcome their entrenched competitors.

Don’t lose your brand name to brand jackers! Bite the bullet and buy your brand name. Trust us, it’s worth it.