Using Brand Names as Keywords

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Seller_wotHka6hanHDc

Using Brand Names as Keywords

Hello! Can sellers use my brand name as a keyword? They are not selling a counterfeit product but using my Brand name to market theirs. I asked amazon what their policy on this was an they tol dme they could not tell me because their policy was confidential (wtf?)

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18 replies
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18 replies
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Seller_qz1y4XweLE9SO

If it is your brand, and you have not given them permission to sell your product - then send them a cease and desist e-mail explaining that you, as the brand owner, have not given them permission to sell you products.

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Seller_3eNt4eZtnS58d

NO, what Amazon told you about it being private is incorrect. It is stated in Amazon Policy for back end keywords, that using brand names of competitors is a strict violation.

Open a ticket, provide them the ASIN and have them investigate it.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=51&language=en-US&ref=mpbc_201991750_cont_51

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Seller_h4PFt9TODKPuZ

How can you tell if they are using your brand name as a keyword? We suspect our biggest competitor is doing the same thing as his product comes up with ours when we search our brand name, but how do we know for sure? Is there a way to see what keywords they are using? It is so frustrating, why can’t we all just play fair?

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Seller_4G4dKMgxjqYv9

If you have a word mark registered than no other seller can use that to promote or sell products. Contact amazon infringement about this.

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Seller_bZbcupLqeAxFZ

NO, they are not allowed and it is against Amazon’s policy. You can only use keywords which fit your product 100%, You can not add keywords to help you in the searches if your product doesn’t match it.

But how do you know what keywords they are using? Amazon has really interesting algorithms to what shows up when you type something in the search bar. so if I type in Rockford shoe, I might get a Nike show, that doesn’t mean that Rockford used Nike as a keyword

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Seller_o3H7Matxku4mV

If you have your name officiallyTrademarked than NO, they can not use it in a title, as a keyword, in a description or anywhere. Nobody can and that is the purpose of Trademarking a name. ( without your explicit consent). If the company is foreign, you will have a difficult time in going the legal route, however, you can have Amazon remove the listing immediatly for trademark infringement as they can easily see if your trademark is on that ASIN.

How can you see that they are using your name in their keyword search though? That is what I am having trouble understanding. There are many ways Amazon uses products to link together in searches, not just by one keyword. So just because someone types in your name and another product may pop up does not mean automatically that your name is in that products keyword seach.

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Seller_Z3TOlAHYZseCc

Suggestion: Check your “Often Bought With”/ “Customer viewed after yours”, etc. lists to see if the listings you suspect of having your brand name in their backend keywords show up or not. Often, if enough sales are generated where a buyer buys yours and the other guys together or even just views them in the same session enough times, the algorithm associates the 2 listings and will show both for a search term. Basically, it may not be the other seller/ listing doing anything on purpose at all. There’s no way to no for sure w/o requesting an investigation though.

Also, merely my 2 cents, unless that other listing is DIRECT competition, (very little differentiation between the 2 listings) I would be very careful about asking Amazon to sever that search term/keyword connection. Most likely, IF the association of the 2 listings was organic and done by Amazon (as I describe above), just as they show up for your brand name, you probably show up for some of their search terms. Which means you may be unknowingly picking up sales that you could lose if you have amazon investigate and pull those terms from their backend.

Another pt to consider - is your product inferior or superior to theirs? If yours is superior (better listing, better price pt, etc.) and obviously so, then letting potential buyers see both may not be such a bad thing…

Food for thought. Hope this helps!

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Seller_teJJS3Io16ofw

Amazon will say they cannot but the question is will they enforce it. Using a large brand name for a building block set like Lego in the key words would shut them down quickly. If your name brand is not “large” they may be less willing to take action, but according to Amazon it is a violation.

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Seller_wotHka6hanHDc

Thank you everyone for your input! You all raised a question that I did not consider - how do I know they are using my brand name as a keyword? I don’t, so thank you for pointing this out.

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Seller_8iaRJGBq9luOl

I used the Amazon brand tool to report a seller using our brand name as a keyword in a lisitng. Not talking PPC here. In my report, i included a link as posted above, with ASIN. Report was rejected. I escalated and Amazon confirmed this seller is using the keyword but said that it isn’t really against their policy so they won’t do anything.

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