Bidding on your name is allowed. Writing it in the ad usually is not
This is the distinction that decides what you can actually do, and it is the one most business owners have never been told.
A competitor choosing to appear when somebody searches your business name is, as a general matter, permitted. It is comparative advertising in the same family as a rival supermarket putting its catalogue in your letterbox. Google's own policy does not treat that as an infringement, and complaints about it go nowhere.
What the policy does address is the use of a trademark in the ad text itself. Google Ads Help documents a complaint process a trademark owner can use where their mark appears in an advertiser's text without authorisation, with limited exceptions — resellers, informational sites and similar. That is a narrower remedy than most people want, and it is a real one.
You cannot stop them appearing next to your name. You can often stop them writing it.
So the first job is not strategic, it is factual. Look at the ad. Is your business name in the headline or the description, or is it merely showing when your name is searched? Those two situations have entirely different answers, and treating the second as the first wastes weeks.
Read the ad before you react to it
Search your own name from a phone that is not logged into your advertising account, and record exactly what appears. A screenshot with the date on it is worth more than a description later.
What to write down
- The exact wording of the headline and the description, character for character.
- The display address and the page it actually goes to.
- Whether your business name appears in the text, or only in the search you typed.
- Whether an ordinary person could believe the ad was placed by you.
- Whether your own ad and your own listing appeared, and in what order.
Point four is the one that matters legally, and it is worth being honest about. An ad reading "Compare Melbourne plumbers" that happens to show for your name is competition. An ad that reproduces your name and sends people to a page styled like yours is a different proposition, and it is where the Australian Consumer Law becomes relevant rather than the platform policy.
Point five is the one that matters commercially, and it is entirely within your control. If your own presence is not the first thing on that screen, the competitor is not really the problem you have.
What Google's trademark process will and will not do
Google operates a complaint process for trademark owners. It is worth using where the mark is genuinely being used in ad text, and it is worth understanding its limits before you build a plan around it.
What it can do: restrict the use of your mark in the text of other advertisers' ads across the platform, so you are not relitigating it with each competitor individually.
What it will not do: prevent competitors from appearing when people search your name, adjudicate whether their claims are true, act on an unregistered name as readily as a registered one, or move quickly enough to matter in the week you noticed it.
Registration is the practical difference between a strong complaint and a weak one. IP Australia maintains the register and searching it is free. If you have never checked whether your business name is registered as a trade mark — and a great many Australian small businesses have a registered company name and no registered mark — that search is a sensible afternoon, independent of this problem.
Expect the process to be slower and narrower than the situation feels. It is a tool for the durable version of the problem, not for the urgent one.
You cannot stop a competitor appearing next to your name. You can often stop them writing it.
When it stops being an advertising problem
There is a line past which this is no longer about advertising, and it is worth recognising because the remedies on the other side of it are completely different.
The ACCC publishes guidance on misleading or deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law, and the test it describes is about the overall impression created for an ordinary member of the public. An ad and a page that together lead someone to believe they are dealing with your business, when they are not, is a different category of conduct from a competitor buying visibility next to your name.
Signals that you have crossed that line: your name reproduced in the ad text; a landing page imitating your branding; claims about your business that are not true; a phone number presented in a way that suggests it is yours; or customers actually contacting you confused about who they just spoke to.
That last one is the most valuable evidence you will ever get, and it is the one businesses fail to record. If someone rings and says they thought they were calling you, write down the date, the time and what they said. Nothing else you can gather is as persuasive.
None of this is legal advice, and the point at which to stop reading articles and speak to a lawyer is the point at which you are collecting that kind of evidence.
Defending your own name is cheaper than you fear, and not always worth it
The standard advice is to make sure you appear for your own name so a competitor is never the only option on the screen. It is good advice, and it comes with two caveats that are usually left out.
The first is that it is normally inexpensive. Searches for your business name are made by people already looking for you, so the click is cheap and the share of those visits that become enquiries is much higher than for any other kind of search. It rarely competes for budget with the rest of your paid search work.
The second is that it is not free, and the argument that you would have got those visits anyway is not entirely wrong. Where you already hold the top organic position and the map listing, and no competitor ad is showing above them, paying to appear as well can be a genuine transfer from your pocket to Google's.
The way to settle it, with placeholder figures
These numbers are invented to show the shape of the decision. Turn your brand-name advertising off for a fortnight and watch total enquiries — not paid enquiries, total. If they were 40 a fortnight with it on and 38 with it off, you were paying for two. If they fall to 25, the ad was doing real work and you have just measured it. Run the test twice before believing either result, because a fortnight is short and a fortnight is noisy.
The related question — whether to advertise at all when you already rank — is the same argument at a larger scale, and it is settled the same way.
A customer who rings and says they thought they were calling you is the most valuable evidence you will ever collect. Write down the date.
The durable answer is to make your name expensive to sit beside
Everything above is a response. The thing that actually ends this problem is making the screen around your name yours.
A person searching your business name is not shopping — they are navigating. They already decided. What determines whether a competitor catches any of them is how much of that screen answers the question they came with. A strong listing with recent reviews, a site that clearly is you, and, where it earns its keep, your own ad, together leave a competitor buying the attention of people who are looking straight past them.
That is why the most effective response to brand bidding is usually not defensive at all. Reviews, a complete and accurate listing and a page that unambiguously matches the name typed are the work that makes the tactic uneconomic for whoever is trying it. Most of that sits in local visibility rather than in the advertising account.
Two final points of discipline. Do not retaliate by bidding on their name reflexively — you may simply teach a competitor who had not thought of it that the tactic exists, and you will both pay more for the same customers. And keep the enquiry count separated by whether people arrived searching your name or searching what you sell, because otherwise a change in one will be blamed on the other for months.
Common questions
Is it illegal for a competitor to bid on my business name in Australia?
Generally no. Appearing when your name is searched is permitted under Google's policy and is treated as competition. The position changes when your name is used inside the ad text, or when the ad and its landing page together create the impression that the competitor is you — which is where the Australian Consumer Law becomes relevant.
Do I need a registered trade mark to complain?
It makes the complaint substantially stronger and simpler. Google's trademark process is built around trademark owners, and IP Australia's register is free to search. Many Australian small businesses have a registered company name and no registered mark, and only discover the difference when they need it.
Should I bid on my own brand name?
Usually, and it is normally cheap because those visitors already want you. Test it rather than assuming: turn it off for a fortnight, watch total enquiries rather than paid ones, and repeat before you trust the answer. Where you already hold the top position and no competitor is showing above you, the case is weaker.
Should I bid on their brand name back?
Rarely as a reaction. It teaches a competitor who may not have considered it that the tactic works, and it usually ends with both businesses paying more for the same customers. Consider it only as a deliberate part of a strategy, not as a reply.