Will you be buying 1-3? That seems kind of pointless?

If you have a unique site, one that is not re-directing straight to us and are buying ppc traffic on our trademarked terms then you can still do so as long as you stay below position 3

No it isn't possible to bid from 4-10, someone could bid half what you are and still come out on top. If they bid a tenth they could have an ad that displays in position one but only a third of the time, not position 3. You get it?

thats why you are prohibiting mis spells?

have you TM'd all the mis spellings?

give me a break..

pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered...

how long before you start suing torrent seeders?

:321GFY

You can utilize position preferenace or many other tools, but being in positions 1-3 are prohibited

great strategy, except if bids drop, it will become profitable to send traffic to a competitor... as a result you will have pissed off affiliates, traffic will leak off to competitors and so your profits will be about the same or even lower... trying to manipulate markets is futile, but good luck :thumbsup

Exactly. my :2 cents:

I think their lawyers are the one suggesting they do this so they can pocket more out of them for legal fees going after domains and sites that support them to earn some extra buck. No surprise at all.

This negativity IMHO is causing them more harm than good.

Again.....We not saying you can not bid on our trademark, We are saying that you can't bid on our trademark and re-direct straight to our site thereby getting traffic from people who were directly looking for us!

Position preference will try to automatically lower a bid, no guarantee even with a low bid that an affiliate won't outrank you. Outright ban bidding on keywords or don't, this bidding up to position 3 business is ridiculous.

Next will be affiliate sites that have Digital Playground in the title tags, page structure, or domain urls.

Which you CANNOT avoid using most useful CMS's, wordpress, tube scripts etc. So do yourselves a favor and start deleting those posts/updates/galleries/vid posts now before they come after you. And don't let them tell you they won't, that's what ALWAYS comes after these announcements.

I promise anyone doing this is looking for trouble. This isn't the first company who's followed this route and won't be the last.


"Thanks for helping us build a brand, now get fucked".

I wonder though, if google will be happy to hear what they are doing, trying to manipulate the market and maintaining a monopoly for their own benefit. If someone report this to google and google isn't happy about it, their keywords could be blacklist and their program can go into the trash. Next thing you know they will be back begging you to promote their program.

When you play with keywords like these you are putting yourself at risk.

The Digital Playground "Brand" has been around for 18 Years. Long before an Affiliate Program was even thought of. We have spent Millions of dollars on PR, Advertising, Marketing and Promotions to build what we now have. Sure Affiliate marketing has played a role in our success but by no means the only reason for it.


Again.....We not saying you can not bid on our trademark, We are saying that you can't bid on our trademark and re-direct straight to our site thereby getting traffic from people who were directly looking for us!

I don't think people are scare really. They are more pissed than scare. There have been a thread on another program trying to close down a huge site they claim to infringe on their trademark and have been very unsuccessful.

Im not promoting Digital Playground.
Im talking about adwords. But your not listening.
Im trying to help you out.

Wow. Shouting while being totally uninformed is bad.
I give up.

So I can bid on top 3 as long as I'm not sending you the traffic.

Got it!

who the fuck are they anyway? so 90s shit?

Harv... you may have made this decision based on what you thought was the right thing and overall more profitable venture... but in the long run youre actually decreasing your income.

Its not protecting your brand at all... youre simply trying to eliminate top spot PPC competition. Your company dosnt want to fight for those spots nor pay more for them.

Having wiredguy pull out (assuming he pushed DP) is a big blow.... just imagine how many other silent PPC affiliates you might deter.

overall... bad decision :2 cents:

So we could just send it to another program...

See a problem?

Harvey you're losin' me man.

So I can bid on "Digital Playground." I can send that traffic to my AEBN theater. All is good. Just so long as I don't send that "Digital Playground" traffic to the actual "Digital Playground" site because then I would be stealing your theoretical traffic?

What?

i think the thread about milk in bags was better.

Theres this problem with people that really dont know surfers or SEO or surfing tactics that think just because a person clicks a link to DP from a ppc ad that they were looking for DP in the first place...

Dont you think if they wer ein search for DP specifically that they would be type in traffic and not google?

Anything from Google ads should be considered a paid for bonus. The only entity that owns google traffic is google. The only traffic from google thats yours more than others is organic SEO traffic. THats something your company has worked for. If someone is outbidding you, thats is your problem and you have to weigh ROI and make a decision.

Making this decision only pissed people off and just might cause more bullshit than you anticipated. There are people here that will pay for ads and send them to other programs just to fuck with you and prove a point.

Though I do have to commend you on notifying people of this rather than just letting them continue sending sales and denying their payments... Weve seen that in the past...

Lol, i work in this biz for many years and i know one fact , 90 % moneys are in 1st position, 9 % in second , and 1 percent in 3-10 positions :-) , so its really great idea spend money for 3 positions clicks.

Doing a search for Jesse Jane and Digital Playground on Google, there's only 1 paid result (from Canada). So there is no way to bid in position 3+ or higher. Its a ridiculous change to the ToS to force webmasters to not bid in the top 3 spots, especially when there aren't 3 spots worth of placements.

With a restriction like this, there's only 2 things a webmaster can do: 1) Stop bidding on your TM terms and pick other terms or 2) Bid on them and send the traffic to a different affiliate program that has the models in their tours/members areas. Guess which one webmasters would rather do...

You're a smart guy Harvey, especially in the mobile space, and I know you have to maintain this position for your employer, but really, this move is going to make your PPC webmasters leave DP. Take it from someone who knows the PPC/SEO market inside and out, this move will see a drop in your PPC traffic and not just on your TM'd terms but all pornstar traffic in general that WM's are buying on behalf of your brand.

WG

PS: If you want a better way to enforce this, I'd suggest you contact Google and show them your trademarks. They can remove all advertisers for your TM'd terms and make anyone wanting to bid on these keywords request permission from you prior to bidding. This will accomplish the same goal and won't piss off your webmasters and more importantly, avoid the bad press...
WG

It's not that you can't send traffic to digitalplayground.com it's that you can't re-direct straight do digitalplayground.com because google's policy is that a site can only have one ppc listing. google deams a url based on where you land after a re-direct so if you're re-directing straight to digitalplayground then you will black us out.

We have filed trademark policies with google. It was also important to do right by the Affiliates and notify them directly instead of just denying payouts.

but organic listings still ok on those terms?

hypothetically speaking top 10 for Jesse Jane and sending traffic to DP.... that still ok?

Hypothetically speaking for that term and others

If they are 'enforcing' their mark, they need to take those down as well.

I am sorry Juicy the answer to your question is no, you cannot direct link and buy trademarked traffic

not buying the traffic , I am meaning I can get into the Top positions "organically" ie: not paying for adwords...

If harv says organic traffic is not payable then im nutting the fuck up right here on gfy...

I guess for example if using a site like www.JesseJaneLovesBlaBlaBla.com and getting in the top google postions for that term than maybe..


but lets say me www.JuicysListBlaBla.com "somehow" gets on google top postion for said term and sending to DP this is OK WITHOUT using Adwrods campaigns..

Harv not paying for it i meant , I think u misunderstand

You have no trademark on ANY traffic from google search. If a user searches DIGITAL PLAYGROUND and my site comes first, that is not your trademark and not a trademark violation.

You can't do anything about it unless I'm actually infringing on your trademark. You do not own the traffic, or the search results, google does.

And to clarify, I (or anyone) do NOT need to infringe on your mark to rank for it.

You guys should talk to a new lawyer, apparently the one you have isn't to sharp, atleast based on the advice they've given you.

Where do you buy organic traffic?
Is that in whole foods too?

This thread in a nutshell: "Google is seeing your ads direct to DigitalPlayground as better than our ads and blacking us out. Under normal circumstances, we'd be happy that we have such talented affiliates. Instead we're jealous and bitter, so stop it. Go promote someone el...I mean go promote different terms or *cough* target your ads to positions 4-10 (lol)."

He did however say you can promote your own unique site and still affiliate to them. Of course if your site now happens to be a leaky ass bucket on visitors' way to DP out of spite...

Naw, just playing with you DP...I'm sure the ramifications of this were WELL thought out.

Juicy, You can buy ppc for either jessejaneblabla.com or juicytitsblabla.com, you just can't be in top position. if you are you will need to pull yourself down to a lower position

Your killing me man! hahaha

Now youve sideskirted the simple specific questions we must have clarification as you are confusing people or acting too confused, one or the other.

This is an easy answer and we all expect a certain answer.

Is organic search engine traffic payable regardless of terms?

Harvey, I have nothing against you but since you insist on spewing the same phrase over and over while not answering people like Juicy's actual, relevant questions - I suggest you leave the thread and let someone else at the company who may have more expertise with PPC take your place in here. :2 cents:

That said, as you've ignored the advice form others above, I don't expect you to follow mine.

This thread actually made my day.

I thank you all for that.

Yes Organic Search Engine Traffic is Payable Regardless of Terms

I knew it, just had to hear it :thumbsup

n/m you answered as I was typing.

See above...

Edit - Vambooozled!

I am heading out for the day if there are any more questions or concerns please contact me directly. All my information is below.

It seems from what I am reading is that you weren't doing much paid search marketing before, now you see affiliates doing it and getting sales. So you want those spots. I understand if you were doing heavy paid search before and it has just become and obstacle. Then maybe it would be cool. But if you were not doing it much before, and you saw results from affiliate sales, and decide to take that method away from that. That is not that cool.

Just my opinion

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :GFYBand:GFYBand:GFYBand:GFYBand