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The problem? Those Gucci shoes aren't Gucci, Christian Iouboutin is a letter away from a lawsuit, and those bags are definitely fake

There have been some brands putting real effort into both. Take Louis Vuitton: shuttering eLuxury opened the door for several counterfeit sites who then had less competition from the legitimate brand for searches. On the paid search side, Louis Vuitton tried to sue Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their name, which is trademarked in many of the countries where they operate. The final ruling was that while individual advertisers could be penalized for misleading users, Google was not responsible for the content or practices of advertisers bidding on brand names.

We pointed out that while the ruling may have been a blow on the paid search side, larger problems were present in the unpaid search results because the counterfeit sites were better optimized than Louis Vuitton’s official site.

If for no other reason than performing well with visitors from search engines, and pushing replica sites further down, dropping eLuxury was a mistake. But the reason eLuxury closed was to put more effort into Nowness, a site curated by Jefferson Hack (publisher of fashion magazine Dazed & Confused). Nowness has an item a day format that doesn’t focus on any single brand, but a person or cultural event to offer a glimpse at the personality behind brands rather than pure product.

On Facebook, more than a million people have become fans of the Louis Vuitton Art of Travel page which features special notes to Facebook fans, behind the scenes videos and interviews with soccer legends Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane (who also appear in the current advertising campaign). So while there are improvements that could be made, the Louis Vuitton online strategy is obviously not centered on suing counterfeit sites out of existence – though we’re sure it’s still part of the plan.

A Facebook ad for fake Christian Louboutin shoes

Other brands haven’t gotten the memo, and are still taking a defensive approach to participation online when they should be on the offense. One example? The company behind those infamous red soles, Christian Louboutin. They launched an entire site dedicated to showcasing crackdowns on Chinese factories manufacturing replica shoes. Unfortunately, the official site misses the mark for search, and even efforts like the recently launched US e-commerce site {Christian Louboutin US online store} are hobbled by huge, slow loading Flash-intros and animations. It’s obviously intended to be an experience site, but the experience isn’t good. There is a good effort on Facebook, where 250,000 fans are update about company announcements.

These efforts, however, are not enough to stop small and nimble counterfeit competitors, who have replica Christian Louboutin shoes, fake Louis Vuitton and Chanel bags and more appearing in Facebook ads, and organically in the news feeds of people targeted by interest. We’ve blacked out names to protect the innocent and the guilty, but in the photo of the fake Louis Vuitton, you can see the sheer number of users being targeted through photo tags. As those photos appear in the newsfeeds of friends, the counterfeit campaign becomes viral.

Big luxury may have the legal power, but it seems back alley bootleggers have the creativity.

Click to view more photos of counterfeit social media campaigns.

Louis Vuitton had asserted that Google’s practice of allowing anyone to bid on trademarked names opened the door to the sale of counterfeit items. In the US and the UK, the system even extended the right to advertisers to include trademarked brands within their ads. So if you were to search for “Louis Vuitton”, nothing would prevent Chanel from running an ad saying “Louis Vuitton is good, but Chanel is great.” That’s only an example, the luxury houses seem to have a gentleman’s agreement to not bid on their rivals names, even if the practice is legal.

While the new ruling protects Google’s ability to sell trademarked search terms, it does reverse a previous ruling which opened the doors to allowing advertisers to include trademarked names within search results. The European Court of Justice decided that advertisers who don’t make it clear that they aren’t commercially affiliated with the trademark holder can find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the brand.

This case settled trademark issues with paid search marketing,  but it also exposes the failings of Louis Vuitton and other brands when it comes to online reputation management and search engine optimization.

In US search results, all but two of the unpaid listings go to replica (read: counterfeit) sites. The two exceptions? The official Louis Vuitton site, and the brand’s Wikipedia entry. With the recent headlines, news and shopping search results push anything beyond the 2nd organic listing down, and depending on location so too does a map. Since Google doesn’t accept money for these algorithmically selected results, they don’t have the same responsibility to police what the sites sell, but there’s little doubt that the $219 purses offered at the second site listed are not authentic.

A local search result appearing to California users searching for "Louis Vuitton"

A closer look at the local results show that even there, replica sites are leading the listings. In the case of this local search result in California, they appear ahead of actual Louis Vuitton stores. In France, where trademark laws are more stringent and have favored brands more heavily, the results aren’t as bad: only four of the top 10 results go to replica websites, and half of the top listings go to authentic Louis Vuitton sites or to LVMH’s corporate site. The results in Germany, Italy and many other European countries are similar.

Even this, however, may simply be a matter of luck. If replica sites were ever to translate their content to target the approximately 5.7 million searches done outside the US, there’s a strong chance that their search ranking success could be replicated in higher positions in more non-English language searches.

To understand why this is a failing on the part of Louis Vuitton, you have to take a look at other luxury brands who’ve made online marketing a cornerstone of their branding strategy. While Louis Vuitton hasn’t exactly been sitting on the sidelines – Nowness, live runway broadcasts and other initiatives signal a real effort at strengthening their digital offerings, a look at more tech entrenched rivals show cracks in a strategy that does not consider organic search optimization.

Worldwide, Google puts the estimated number of searches for Chanel at 13 million, 9 million for Louis Vuitton and 6 million for Burberry.

Chanel, which only began selling beauty products online in recent years, and just announced plans to sell handbags online, is surprisingly strong in results. Local results show only actual Chanel boutiques, in the US, paid search ads direct users to authorized beauty retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. There are only 2 ads for replica websites, and of the 6 results that don’t go to official Chanel websites, 4 point to information websites like Wikipedia, About.com (a biography on Coco Chanel) and the Purse Blog.

For Burberry, who has made a strong online effort with livestream broadcasts and social media via the Art of the Trench, the results are even better. A mere 3 sites in the top 10 results are not owned by Burberry. Of those 3, two (ShopStyle and Wikipedia) point back to authorized resellers. The paid search listings are dominated by retailers, like Net-a-Porter and the Outnet, selling authentic products and not a single replica website rears its ugly head on the first page.

So what should Louis Vuitton do to reclaim their results?

Put a strategy in place that recognizes branding does not conquer all, especially when it comes to search.

While shuttering eLuxury to focus on Nowness may have been an exercise in branding, it was a mistake as far as search. The top result for anyone looking for eLuxury is now a poorly designed counterfeit site, while eluxury.com still has thousands of links from people who haven’t updated their list of authentic Louis Vuitton purchase points.

Partner up.

The only way Louis Vuitton will win the battle against counterfeiters is to embrace online partners who have a vested interest in promoting the brand. We can already hear the screams of terror about loss of control coming from luxury fanatics, but allow us to explain. Chanel, a company whose brand is as tightly controlled as any other luxury house, has done it through fragrance and beauty products. Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Neiman Marcus are all selling the same goods, at the same prices. But it’s in their best interest to ensure that fake bottles of Chanel No 5 aren’t further diluting their opportunity at sales.

Louis Vuitton would be smart to explore distribution of sunglasses and small non-handbag accessories with online partners. eLuxury used to be that place for blogs and smaller websites, but Net-a-Porter, Saks, Neiman Marcus and many others could step in to bolster authentic distribution points without eating into market share for key items like handbags and luggage.

For Burberry, it’s distributing content through multiple media partners – fashion blogs and general interest sites alike. Very likely part of the reason live.burberry.com, the home of the brand’s livestream runway shows, appears in the top 10 results on a search of their brand name.

We understand the need to aggressively protect the brand against infringement, but all the trademark enforcements in the world will not be enough to replace an online strategy that fails to include search marketing at its core.