I don’t like to call out other bloggers, but I do it sometimes. People are gentle with my mistakes — Steve Feingold being the model of graciousness this week (as he always is, of course!) — usually.
But, Charles from DFY Links says, if you write a blog and you jack it all up full of SEO juice and it then gets picked up by my daily Google Alert for “trademark” and then I poke around on your oddly-written Minnesota Attorney Blog blog where you have a category called “Minnesota Intellectual Property” — and hey, I know as well as anyone that they do intellectual property in Minnesota, so I’m not going to snark you out on that — and then I find that each post has this canned-SEO preface to it that says, Minneapolis Intellectual Property Attorneys,”… you know, just in case someone’s, like, searching for the phrase MINNESOTA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ATTORNEYS or something… and I click one of the two posts in this category by these “attorneys…”
It had better be good, brother.
So:
Trademarks do not have to be registered in order to be valid. The person who uses a mark in commerce first obtains a trademark on that mark. This mark indicates where a good or service came from. It shows the source. The person who obtains a trademark on a mark also obtains the right to prevent others from using that mark in commerce.
No. Not good.
Not, not, not, not good.
I feel like Scott Greenfield. But sometimes, somebody’s got to do it.
Not. Good.
Minnesota Intellectual Property.
Bad.
UPDATE: I don’t want to think I killed it. But it’s dead.
Originally posted 2014-08-11 18:52:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Ron,
You must love trademark blog posts entitled, “What is in a name?”
Adam Smith
Reporter
World Trademark Review
That’s right up there with “Random Musings,” Adam! — RDC
Well said Ron. It is a shame when people pretend to blog as an SEO tactic; drags the rest of us down.
I assure you, David, nothing done at that space dragged either of us, or our bona fide colleagues, down. If anything, it says more about the scoundrel who ripped this poor guy off for who knows how much, dispensing advice as a “social media guru”!
Lexblogs and FindLaw, on the other hand… — RDC
Wow. Looks like the Minnesota Intellectual Property Attorneys need a new ghost writer.
Well, every blogger deserves better positions in search engines as it means more readers that is ok, but with that kind of SEO style writing if you get better positions you will also get a bad reputation. Brave post!
Thanks, Rafael, but it’s not all that brave to criticize someone with no real ability to inflict payback on me… but that’s not my problem. Yes, I still think writing this was the thing to do, and maybe the fellow with the blog will even learn from it, get his money back from whoever sold him this “program,” and do better in the future. — RDC
Another very interesting post! A hypothesis: should (?) there basic guidelines be introduced on the state (Federal) regulation of the web search companies? The Net_as if_free and neutral, per se does not mean legal entities and citizens not subject to being responsible as to how and which quality of the linked content they put on top positions in their ‘search alerts’. Even start to think that state (anti-monopoly/anti-conglomerate) legislation regulating accountability of SEO platforms, IPs, and the assorted agents, not a totally bad idea.
Well, Nina, our attitude around here is that the mere fact that something is not working right does not necessarily mean that government will make it any better by second-guessing the free operation of the market. — RDC
I never leave blog posts just for the sake of SEO results. My full name just happens to include the initials for New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in it.
(Hey, this case, it’s on the topic! 🙂 )
Yes, Michael, in this case it is.
But not in a good way.