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by jasongill 3297 days ago
Contrary to what other commenters believe, this is the way that all PPC systems work - search for "Uber" on Google, Bing, etc and you're guaranteed to see a Lyft ad.
3 comments
thaumasiotes 3296 days ago
Googled "uber".

Top result: ad - www.uber.com

Second result: ad - www.lyft.com/Uber_Drivers/Join_Lyft

Third result: organic - www.uber.com

There should be more results, but they aren't visible without scrolling down. Frankly, I find that more disturbing than anything else about this.

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Buge 3296 days ago
The Uber result for me also gives me 5 internal links to uber.com and a "more results from uber.com" link. Also in the sidebar I get a link to Uber's wikipedia page, as well as various information about the company, and links to competitors such as Lyft and Sidecar.
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B1FF_PSUVM 3296 days ago
Welcome to 1997.
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ikeboy 3296 days ago
just did in incognito and saw an uber ad but no lyft one
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jasonlotito 3295 days ago
http://imgur.com/a/dASeT

Lyft and Uber.

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jlarocco 3296 days ago
No doubt Uber paid a lot of money for that to be the case...
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Buge 3296 days ago
They're paying money so that I don't see ads? That seems quite nice of them.
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jlarocco 3296 days ago
Not sure if you're being facetious or not, but they're paying Google to not show ads for their competitors when a person searches for "uber".
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Pyxl101 3296 days ago
As far as I'm aware, that's not something that Google allows you to do. Is it?

It seems more likely that:

- Other services have decided not to bid on "Uber". It may be more useful to bid on general keywords like "taxi" or "black car", etc.

- The price for that keyword is too high to be worth it

- The performance of the ads is poor such that Google doesn't show them.

- It's also possible that Lyft is bidding on the keyword "Uber", but only in certain geographical areas where they're trying to grow their presence.

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idunno246 3296 days ago
It's indirect. Lyft sets a max price of $0.05 for an ad placement, so uber has to set $0.06 to ensure that they get the ad and lyft doesnt.
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soared 3296 days ago
No it is not something Google allows. But for big brands they manually disallow paid results (see "Nike"). I don't see any ads on the uber results page.
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nl 3296 days ago
No, Google enforces trademarks after a complaint by the owner.

I believe competitors can still bid for that word, but cannot misuse it (ie, make misleading claims, or claim to be that company)

See https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118

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