It is common practice in the PPC world to bid on your competitors name (but not put the competitors name in the advertisement). But how many sites have links using their competitors name in the footer and sitemap? Well, Custom Ink uses the following links in pages of their footer in what is more than just a simple comparison page. Custom Ink’s inner page footer includes the following links: Customglamgirl | CustomizedGirl | Design A Shirt and the full business names in the site map in hopes of showing up in the search engine results when people search for these companies. And guess what? It works. When you search for Custom Glam Girl, CustomINK’s page shows up as the third result. For Design A Shirt, Custom INK shows up as the second result. For Customized Girl, CustomINK again shows up as the third result. I am on the fence about whether this is appropriate or not. What do you think?
It is not a practical way of doing business but when you’re fighting for users on the net, anything goes!
if your name is trademarked and copyrighted, they cannot use it in this fashion per an outstanding attorney in the field of intellectual property. They may do price comparisions but when they do that there are special guidelines that must be followed regarding the use of your competitors’ logo and info.