Is it illegal for a competitor to bid on my brand name?

Usually not. Bidding on a brand keyword is legal in most markets and permitted by Google Ads. It typically only crosses a legal or policy line when the competitor uses your trademark in the ad text itself or implies that you endorse them.

Can I make Google stop them completely?

No. Google has no setting that blocks a competitor from bidding on your keyword. What Google will act on is a direct competitor using your trademark in the ad’s text — which you report through the trademark complaint process as the rights holder.

Should I just bid on my own brand name to make them stop?

Bidding on your own brand won’t remove a competitor, but it keeps you in the top slot and makes their placement more expensive. Whether it’s worth the spend depends on how aggressive they are — see our guide on whether to bid on your own brand name.

Does clicking their ad cost them money?

It does, but clicking a competitor’s ad yourself is against Google’s terms, easy for Google to detect, and won’t make them stop. It also can’t scale, so it’s never a real remedy — leave it alone.

How do I actually report it?

If they’re using your trademark in the ad copy, submit Google’s trademark complaint form as the trademark owner. Bidding on the keyword alone is not reportable; the reportable violation is the misuse of your mark in the ad.

A competitor is bidding on your brand name. Here’s what to do.

BrandGuardPaid-search brand protectionUpdated 8 July 20265 min read

In most countries a competitor is allowed to bid on your brand name as a keyword, and Google will not stop them for that alone. What they cannot do is put your trademark in their ad text. So confirm who is actually there, hold your own top slot, protect your Quality Score, and report any trademark misuse — in that order.

First, confirm what’s actually happening

Before you react, get evidence. A single sighting might be a one-off test, a broad-match accident, or an affiliate rather than the competitor themselves — and each of those has a different fix. Two minutes of checking saves you from firing off a complaint that goes nowhere.

Search your exact brand term in an incognito window, set to your target location — the ads you see are the ones your customers see.
Open Auction Insights on your brand campaign in Google Ads to see every domain competing for your branded searches, not just the one you happened to spot.
Use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool instead of searching repeatedly, so you don’t inflate their impressions or your own costs.
Note whether it’s a direct competitor, an affiliate or reseller, or a partner — the wording in their ad tells you which, and it decides your next move.

Screenshot and timestamp everything you find. If it turns into a trademark complaint later, dated evidence of what the ad said and when is exactly what Google and your legal team will ask for.

Know the line: keyword bidding vs. your trademark in the ad

Almost every frustrated brand owner conflates two different things. One is allowed and one is not, and telling them apart decides whether you have a complaint or just a competitor.

Bidding on your brand name as a keyword — allowed in most markets, and there is no Google setting that blocks it.
Using your trademark in their headline or description — against Google Ads policy and reportable by the trademark owner.
Implying they are you, or an official partner when they are not — not allowed; this is where “allowed” bidding becomes a violation.
The display URL is a carve-out: Google explicitly won’t restrict your mark in the second-level domain of a competitor’s display URL, so that part alone isn’t reportable.

So the presence of a competitor on your term is not, by itself, something Google will remove. What Google acts on is misuse of your trademark inside the ad. Keep that distinction in mind for every lever below.

The four levers that actually push them back

Defend your own term. Run a tight, high-relevance brand campaign so you hold the top position. A competitor has to pay a premium to sit above an incumbent with a strong Quality Score, and many decide it isn’t worth it.
Protect your Quality Score. Because your ad and landing page are genuinely the most relevant result for your own name, your clicks stay cheap while theirs stay expensive — the auction quietly works in your favour.
Report trademark misuse. If your brand appears in their headline or description, file Google’s trademark complaint as the rights holder. (If they’ve claimed your brand as their displayed business name, that goes through Google’s separate business-verification route instead.) This is the path that can actually get an ad removed.
Approach them directly. A mutual “we won’t bid on each other’s brand terms” agreement is common between competitors and almost always cheaper than an escalating bidding war.

What you can’t do — so you don’t waste time

You can’t make Google block a competitor from bidding on your keyword. There is no such setting, and support won’t add one.
You can’t claim the keyword as “yours”. A trademark protects how your name is used in ad text — it does not reserve the keyword auction.
You can’t solve this with negative keywords. Negatives only control where your own ads show; they have no effect on anyone else’s campaigns.
You can’t click their ad to drain their budget. It’s against Google’s terms, trivially detected, and won’t make them stop.

Stop checking by hand

Reacting once is easy. The hard part is knowing the moment a new advertiser appears — across every brand term, every market, and both desktop and mobile — without manually searching each one every morning. Infringers rarely run all day; they surface at particular hours or in particular regions, which is exactly when a manual spot-check misses them.

That’s what continuous monitoring is for: it watches your branded searches around the clock and captures the evidence the moment someone shows up, so your first sign of a problem isn’t a customer telling you they clicked a competitor by mistake.