Every day, an unprecedented amount of textual and visual content is published on websites with the intent of taking unfair advantage of the goodwill of well-known brands. Website content monitoring plays a vital role in helping brand owners ensure that unsuspecting consumers only view official and authorized content. We explain how to set up an effective online content monitoring strategy and how Questel's online brand protection solution can assist.
With new websites and web content being published every day, brand owners must find a cost- and time-effective process for monitoring top-ranking and newly indexed results to ensure that the highest-ranking 20 results are kept ‘clean.' To mitigate risk efficiently in multiple markets worldwide, website content monitoring should be set up from a variety of IP addresses and using various languages and scripts as content varies depending on user location.
Website Content Monitoring Best Practices
Step 1: Detection
As part of the web content monitoring module of our online brand protection service, we:
- Monitor the newly indexed and 20 top-ranking results in Google (different keywords, phrases, and IP addresses).
- Monitor copyrighted images and use recognition technology for manipulated versions of brand logos.
- Set up searches with unique texts or images from identified cases. Our online investigators are trained to mimic consumer behavior and use online investigation techniques to reveal cases that are normally not picked up by software alone.
- Filter results and undertake proactive identification of infringement using subject matter knowledge and online investigation techniques1.
Step 2: Investigation & Enforcement
Through our case management and take-down brand protection system (CMS), our experts make use of unique identifiers such as images, contact information, texts, and WHOIS data to reveal more cases. Once the scope of the abuse has been established, complaints can be sent directly through the CMS to the relevant intermediary such as the hosting provider, registrar, or content owner—and, in severe cases, can be escalated to local law enforcement based on applicable laws and regulations.
We can also support you with domain name landscape reports to provide an overview of already registered domain names along with available WHOIS data.
Frequently Asked Questions About Web Content Monitoring
What is Web Content Monitoring?
Web content monitoring aims to detect occurrences of abuse of a brand owner's trademarks and related intellectual property (IP) rights in online content on websites indexed by major search engines. Specifically, this includes pre-existing and novel mentions of brand trademarks in hyperlink URLs, page content, and meta-tags.
What is included in the Web Content Monitoring Module?
Our online brand protection module for web content monitoring includes:
- Setting up a web crawler that searches for keywords, phrases, and keyword combinations in real-time.
- Monitoring of the top 20 results on Google (first two pages) from different keywords and geographical locations.
- Monitoring of most important copyright images (product photos, logos, etc.). The crawler searches for identical images.
- Add professional investigation hours to go through the URLs provided by the crawlers, to reveal abuse overseen by the crawlers, and to configure the crawlers to reveal more accurate results.
- All cases will be added to our case management and take-down brand protection system, pre-assessed by our subject matter experts to avoid any time wasted on irrelevant results.
- Quick and efficient enforcement of all types of web content abuse.
- Agreed KPIs and 24/7 reporting.
Why Are Online Investigators Necessary?
A web content crawler can't find everything on the internet; it definitely cannot single out all the abuse of a brand. A web crawler needs to be configured in a way that reveals relevant results. Therefore, we always add professional online investigation work mimicking consumer behavior, following up on hints that can lead us to the source of the problem, and, most importantly, using our human intuition to reveal abuse overseen by the crawler. This way, when identifying abuse, we can go back to the configuration of the crawler and reconfigure it, so it reveals more accurate results.
Why Should I Monitor Top Pages on Google?
Google is important to cover in the monitoring as it is the leading search engine, with a market share of around 70%. Keeping the top 10 results on Google clean from abuse of your brand will result in around 90% of the searches being directed to a genuine and authorized website. Including the second page will ensure most of the searches will be safe.
As part of our online content monitoring service, we monitor the top 20 Google Search Engine results of your brand + keywords from different IP addresses (geographical locations).
Footnote
1. Questel does not provide any legal services. Legal services are provided by independent IP attorneys on the basis of a separate engagement agreement between you and, if you wish to, a partner IP attorneys firm.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
