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Since the change in Google’s trademark policy there’s been a debate in the internet marketing community about what to advise clients to do.

Some brand owners bid on their brand term, some don’t.

Clearly, you now can’t stop another site bidding on your brand name, but my understanding is that you can stop them using your brand term in the ad - as to do so is to imply that they are you, or have an association with you.

I’ve advised all my clients to monitor their brand term each morning (it only takes a few seconds) and to write to Google if someone is using the brand in their ad.

The second issue is whether to bid (or continue to bid) on their brand term.

Clearly this depends on where they rank in natural search.

If they rank number 1 in natural search for their brand term (which all of my clients do), there is little point in also bidding to appear in the sponsored results, partiuclarly as the bid prices will now rise due to others bidding on them.

So I’ve advised my clients not to, unless of course the client is a bid budget PPC operator and wants to take no chances.