Hey, they are calling us "outdated."

[l3ta]

While doing a Google search for XF, I stumbled upon and add for another forum software calling XF "Outdated.





How dare they?!

 

[beerForo]

They skuurd

 

[l3ta]

And also "complex." They are gunning for us!

 

[Tom]

Their constant use of capital letters gives me anxiety

 

[Max Taxable]

Getting their money's worth for their ad... Even have it posted now here on xF!

 

[l3ta]

Getting their money's worth for their ad... Even have it posted now here on xF!

Oops! Ok, now that XF is aware, they can delete this thread.

 

[beerForo]

It's just keyword advertising. You mention various brands and it fills in the blank in their ad verbiage. Not a big deal to see in a search engine.

 

[Paul B]

We're not going to lose any sleep over it.

Their constant use of capital letters gives me anxiety

Maybe it's a trump owned company ...

 

[vishal998]

It's just marketing strategy they use & quite common but if the customer finds out which is outdated then it may backfire.

 

[FreshFroot]

I guess it depends... what forum platform do they consider NOT outdated ?

 

[frm]

I didn't think a competitor could keyword bid on another competitor's mark... only generic terms.

Not seeing the ad on my end, but it's definitely not outdated unless you have a definition for that which would make it outdated nor complex (unless you get into development, then pretty much everything is).

 

[RobinHood]

I didn't think a competitor could keyword bid on another competitor's mark... only generic terms.

They certainly can. It's why a lot of companies bid on their own company name in Google Search results.

Seems mad, but they do it to prevent competitors trying to siphon off potential customers this way.

See this search for the chat and crm app Intercom.

They're bidding on their keword, but so is Zendesk and FrontApp, and all 3 ads show up before the organic top result for the official intercom site.

FrontApp even have a custom landing page and URL trying to claim it's better than intercom

 

[frm]

They certainly can. It's why a lot of companies bid on their own company name in Google Search results.

I know keyword bidding on your own mark is accepted, no doubt, but it appears unfair sniping to bid higher for, say XF, than XF would pay and a competitor ranking above them. I'll have to revisit AdWords policy on this, but, I know generic terms ("forum software", etc.) is acceptable and they might group them into one as they're relatively the "same" product while giving the highest bidder the top slot, taking into consideration the CTR as a higher CTR, even on a low bid, may outperform a higher bid.

Say I owned a bottling company in direct competition to Coca-Cola with a pleasing alternative that many customers may enjoy over traditional Cola that is cheaper. Then, go all out on marketing and bid beyond the high of $0.53 CPC. It appears like I would get #1 above Coca-Cola, forcing them to bid even higher. It resembles a gorilla-like "SERP" (ad positioning) tactic (though this is an extreme example as Coca-Cola could very well just 2x, 3x, 5x the CPC and not lose, unless the product I whipped up did taste better and have raved reviews, etc.).

 

[RobinHood]

Yep, a lot of people aren't happy about the fact that this is possible and that you have to pay to stay at the top of the search results for your brand if someone else is bidding on it.

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[frm]

Yep, a lot of people aren't happy about the fact that this is possible and that you have to pay to stay at the top of the search results for your brand if someone else is bidding on it.

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Whatever lines the pockets of Google while kicking smaller businesses in the teeth and allowing multi-million marketing budgets to supersede all products with trademarks because they bid too low.

Imagine XF paying and X forum software doubling up when someone searches "Xenforo". It just doesn't seem fair.

This goes for domains, too. I can't register XenForoForum and then redirect it to X forum software. The same principle (or law) behind that should carry over. No competitor should be able to bid on a keyword in direct competition.

 

[Masetrix]

We're not going to lose any sleep over it.


Maybe it's a trump owned company ...

There, Corona seems to have mutated. It no longer primarily attacks the lungs, but the brain directly. corona rabies

 

[BigPete7978]

I love xenForo and the features. Been with it since the beginning, and plan on continuing to be with it.

 

[DigNap15]

That's why I have started a defund Google campain
Their practices are evil. (defunding Youtube channels)
We need to get epople to use DuckDuckgo and Bing
My forum is on page 7 with Google, but its on the top of page 1 with the other two.

 

[Ozzy47]