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Comment by VoidWhisperer | Hacker News Reader

One thing that this article doesn't mention and I'm curious about: while the author didn't see it in this case, if you are in a much more competitive niche, if you completely stop ad pay, what is stopping google from then displaying a competitor who is still paying them for ad space at the top of a search result related to your brand/market niche where you are otherwise the first non-ad result?

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Hi, original author here. Great point. In fact other firms seems to be able to get away with even using your brand-name in their advertising. Simply put, nothing stops this, and it will happen. It comes down to how confident the customer is looking specifically for you and not anyone else. In competitive niches, this could be tricky, but if they searched on your brand name, there is a high chance they'll dig to find your website.

The nonexistence of a competitor in many cases. But yes you’ve hit the dirty secret of search ads — they are often a highway toll to receive the traffic you would probably already receive barring fierce competition

Nothing, which is why you may get to the point where you're advertising to protect your brand rather than advertising to build your business.

I find it completely plausible that advertising is a zero sum game for the reason above, and a negative sum game when you consider the externalities and the money spent on it.

IIRC, Google had a rule that you cannot bid on trademark names. Not sure if that changed lately.

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