Auto Takedown Explained

Auto Takedown is an add-on feature within Adthena’s suite of Brand Protection solutions. It enables customers to quickly identify when competitors misuse a registered trademark and submit those instances directly to Google for removal, all with a single click within the platform.

This feature streamlines the enforcement process by generating a tailored report based on specific rules designed to detect trademark violations on Google. Adthena continuously monitors the hourly terms in the account, focusing on the core trademark to determine whether it appears in the title or description of any ads. When a potential violation is detected, the system captures all the necessary information required by Google for review and submits it on your behalf.

• Navigate to Auto Takedown
• Date Picker
• Rules
• Settings
• Auto Takedown Chart
• Active, Reported, Expired, and Ignored tabs
• Export
• Cross-Location Management
• Alternating Trademarks

Navigate to Auto Takedown

To view the Auto Takedown report, go to the left-hand navigation menu, click on the Brand Protection tab, and select Auto Takedown from the dropdown list.

Date Picker

The date picker, found in the top-right corner of most sections in the app, lets you adjust the time range for the chart or table data within the feature.

Date Selection Options

• Days: View daily data from the last 30 days. You can select specific days or a range of days.
• Weeks: Selecting a date older than 30 days will show weekly data, aggregated from Sunday to Saturday. You’ll always see data up to the most recent completed Saturday, regardless of your chosen end date. You can select individual weeks or multiple weeks from the past 13 months.
• Months: Selecting a date older than 13 months displays monthly data. Choose specific months, or group them into quarters or full years.
• Last 12 Months: Shows data from the past 52 weeks, giving you a rolling year view.

Rules

Use the All Rules dropdown to view the list of created rules and filter infringements based on a specific rule. By default, the view is set to All Rules.

Settings

When the feature is enabled, two rules—one for desktop and one for mobile—are automatically generated. 

Selecting a rule allows you to configure the following settings:

• Search terms - These are the hourly terms you would like to monitor within your rule. Existing hourly terms will be available for selection, and any updates can be managed via Search Term Settings. If you update your hourly terms after the rule has been created and want those changes to be reflected, you will need to manually apply the updates to each relevant rule. Unlike the Infringement tracker, deleting all hourly search terms will not delete the auto takedown rule; the rule will remain active until it is explicitly removed.
• Competitors - To monitor specific competitors, like your affiliates, choose Only the following domains. To exclude certain domains (e.g., your own), select All domains except the following. Enter a valid domain (e.g., "adthena.com") in the text box. Suggestions will appear, but you can add any domain, even if it’s not listed. Press Enter to add each domain. Repeat this process until all competitors have been entered. 
• Ad Text - Use this section to add to add your trademark. We check ad title and ad description fields only to comply with Google rules. Ad text is not case sensitive.

1. Enter your trademark and select where to monitor it: Title, Description, or both.
2. Choose how to match the trademark: contains, contains (whole word only), doesn’t contain, or doesn’t contain (whole word only). 

Trademarks

To access your trademark details, navigate to the Trademarks tab and click on the trademark text to view its information. If any information needs to be updated, select the Request Changes button in the top right corner of the Auto Takedown Trademark Details page. This will open a new window where you can submit your request to our support team, who will process the updates accordingly.

Request Additional Trademark

To request monitoring of an additional trademark term in Adthena, click the Request to add trademark button to generate an email template directed to our support team. Please ensure the following information is included in your request:

• Trademark
• Trademark Number
• Trademark Country
• Company Name
• Company Address and City
• Company Country
• Trademark Owner’s Name
• Contact Email for Feedback

Once submitted, your request will be forwarded to your Adthena Customer Success Manager or Account Manager for further processing.

Auto Takedown Chart

The Auto Takedown chart shows the number of competitors and ad instances based on the date range you select using the date picker.

Dotted Line - Competitors
Bar Graph - Ad Instances

You can click on each point in the chart to open a label which shows the date, number of competitors and Ad instances. To download the chart, click the download button in the top right corner and choose from PNG, JPEG, or SVG vector formats.

Active, Reported, Expired and Ignored tabs

You may report advertisers who misuse your trademark in the ad title or description. However, Google does not accept trademark complaints related to the use of a brand name in an advertiser’s display URL, as this alone does not necessarily indicate misuse or deception.

Google permits the use of trademarked terms in display URLs under certain conditions, such as:

• Authorized resellers or distributors: An advertiser may use the brand name to indicate that they legitimately sell the brand’s products.
• Referencing or reviewing: Websites that mention, compare, or review a brand (e.g., in blog posts or articles) may use the brand name in the display URL for context or commentary.

Active

This list shows all ready-to-report infringements detected during the selected period, grouped by competitor. Auto Takedown uses AI to automatically remove coupon, informational and aggregator sites—analyzing domain names, ad copy and full landing page content to filter false positives—before submission. Since Google does not consider these sites trademark infringements, they are rejected. 

• Competitor - The competitor we detected infringing.
• Ad - The Display URL. Clicking the Preview link opens a new tab showing a screenshot of the infringement as it appeared on Google's search results page (SERP).
• Unique Ad Copy - The most commonly detected ad copy is displayed for each competitor.
• 'X' ads - Number of unique ads captured.
• 'X' Instances to report - An instance refers to a single detection of an ad, meaning the same ad can be detected multiple times, resulting in multiple instances.

Only when a new, unique trademark violation is detected will the Report Ads button become available. Since Google can take weeks to process requests, identical ads are not repeatedly shown for reporting. Instead, only new ad instances are displayed for submission to ensure efficient and meaningful reporting.

Report Ads

Click the Report Ads button to report a trademark violation to Google. Adthena will handle the submission process. Please note that, due to a Google limitation, infringements older than seven days cannot be reported and will instead appear in the Expired column.

Smart Submissions

Smart Submission helps you focus on genuine trademark infringements by automatically checking domains against Google’s trademark rules. It flags sites that may not be infringing, such as legitimate resellers, informational pages, or aggregators, and explains why, allowing you to review and confirm before submitting your report.

If a domain is flagged, you’ll see quick review questions confirming:

1. The site’s purpose (deceptive, reseller, informational, etc.)
2. Whether it includes commercial info (like pricing).
3. If it’s clearly a third-party site.

When the tool labels the case as “borderline,” you can still proceed, but success depends on Google’s interpretation. What to do:

1. Click Review Site to open the landing page and confirm if it legitimately sells or references your brand.
2. Either select Ignore - Do not show this domain again or continue with takedown if it clearly violates your trademark.

Reported

This section lists all competitors you’ve reported. To improve the likelihood of Google taking action, multiple instances of ad copy are submitted together. As a result, Adthena does not send reports immediately but compiles all detected infringements and submits them to Google once daily.

• Reported - The date we reported the infringement to Google.
• Case ID - The Google case ID can be useful for following up with your Google representative regarding the status of this submission.
• Request status - The Request Status column shows Google’s response to each takedown request:
  • Successful – Google has processed your request and removed the infringing content.
  • Unsuccessful – Google has decided not to remove the requested content. If the request is unsuccessful, click See why to view Google's explanation.
  • Submitted – Your request is currently under review by Google.
  • Unknown – This indicates that your request has either been sent to Google and is awaiting confirmation, or it was submitted before the Request Status column was introduced

Excluded

The Excluded tab shows domains that Adthena has automatically removed from the reporting queue before submission. The reason for exclusion is that these landing pages align with Google's guidelines.

To determine whether a domain should be excluded, the system analyses the domain name, ad copy, and full landing page content. Each excluded entry is assigned a reason based on why Google would not accept a trademark complaint against it.

There are ten reasons why an ad may be in the excluded column. Please see an explanation for each reason below. You can also hover over the reason in-app to see more details.

Expired

Due to a Google limitation, infringements older than seven days cannot be reported and will instead appear in the Expired column.

Ignored

To ignore a competitor, click the "...". Ignored competitors will be stored in the Ignored tab.

In the Action column, click the "..." menu to either report the ad or remove it from the ignored list.

Export

Users can download the list of infringements by clicking the Download button.

Cross-Location Management

To reduce duplication and streamline the takedown process:

• Domains submitted for takedown in one location are now automatically hidden from all other locations for the same user during Google’s review.
• Domains marked as “Unsuccessful” due to Google policy compliance are now filtered out across all locations.

These improvements help reduce manual effort for users and prevent unnecessary duplicate submissions to Google.

Alternating Trademarks

You can update the trademark that Adthena monitors at any time. While changes typically take effect within one day, it may take up to two days for the new term to be fully active. For example, if a new trademark is added today, monitoring will begin no later than the day after tomorrow.