Google Keyword Planner Now Shows Trademarked Terms

At some point recently, Google started to indicate terms that are trademarked in the Keyword Planner with the TM mark. Dan Shure of Evolving SEO tweeted about the new feature, noting that McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” tagline is not marked as trademarked while Staples’ “The Easy Button” is marked as such. (Burger King’s “Have It […]

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trademarkAt some point recently, Google started to indicate terms that are trademarked in the Keyword Planner with the TM mark.

Dan Shure of Evolving SEO tweeted about the new feature, noting that McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” tagline is not marked as trademarked while Staples’ “The Easy Button” is marked as such. (Burger King’s “Have It Your Way” also gets a TM.)

What is marked as trademarked and what isn’t appears to be somewhat inconsistent at this point. For example, in this set of queries for several Pittsburgh Steelers’ related terms, “steellers” and “steelers pictures” are no’t marked as trademarked. I assumed that meant that “Pittsburgh” needed to be included in the search to trigger the trademark. However, for some reason “steelers hat” is marked with with the trademark symbol.

Keyword Planner Trademarks SteelersThe NHL was the only major sports organization I could find that wasn’t marked, likewise NHL team names such as Pittsburgh Penguins are not marked.

The trademarked terms can still be added to campaigns. The “TM” mark is not included with the keywords when they are added. Presumably Google is adding the marker to help eliminate user surprise when trademarked terms get disapproved. The inconsistency could cause more confusion if in fact keywords such as “steelers pictures” are eventually disapproved for trademark reasons.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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