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 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.
The 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.
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