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Using AdWords to “Badmouth” the Competition

Espen talks about how Google’s AdWords is used against 24SevenOffice. Here’s one of the ads displayed for the keyword “24SevenOffice” :

24SevenOffice – Great system for doctors, quick service, low costs!

The only problem is, 24SevenOffice does not do any of it. It’s a CRM+ERP+Communication+ .. + SaaS provider.

Whoever put up the ad, will likely pay very little, as few who specifically search for the company will click through. They manage, however, to clobber their competitor’s image, confuse and drive away potential customers, or disappoint the few who actually might be looking for a doctors’s solution, click through and feel “bait and switched”.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    Last I looked, AdWords drops an ad after it runs so long but gets too few clicks. Whoever placed the ad might need to click it themselves to keep it live — so there is some cost.

    Or maybe it’s a decoy placed to monitor click fraud? In that case it could have been placed by anybody, even Google.

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