Skip to main content

Reply to "Keyword spamming - the case of Steelow vs. Ehmann"

I dont know who this is about, but the writer of the above is misguided on a few points as relate to keyword spamming. The use of someone elses club name, celebrity name or other trade name within one's website is not a trademark infringement as the writer above states. It may be sleazy, but as far as I know it is not illegal or prosecutable under the laws of either the US or UK.

Think of the celebrated "aolsucks.com" and other websites that clearly use a trade name in a way that is abhorrent to the owner of that trade name. For now at least, this is protected speech on the Internet, and I for one hope it remains that way.

The use of trade names in "hidden" tags, which I think this writer is referring to ("hidden" text on a site usually means text of the same color as the background which is invisible to the reader but is spidered by search engine bots) is not illegal either, but it can have one important side effect - it can get a site banned either permanently or at least for several months by Google. Since Google is the most important engine for serious surfers, and since some other engines use Google to deliver their results, this could have devastating impact on a site.

Interesting discussion here, regardless.
×
×
×
×