How florist went viral after orders 'hijacked' in search engine optimisation jam

Have you noticed while doing an online search for a specific brand that you can end up with hits on other companies?

Well, a recent case of a local small business potentially losing out through this, prompts Wendy Knowler to delve into the world of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

A Durban florist went viral with a tearful TikTok video she posted after learning that big player NetFlorist had apparently used Google's SEO to divert a customer to its own site.

Roxane Gordon and her mother Gai took over Flowers on Kensington in late 2024, building on the success of this established florist that's been part of the Durban North community for over 30 years.

In the runup to Valentine's Day, a friend had done a Google search for the name of the business and didn't notice at the time that he'd been directed to a NetFlorist site - the two found out later that he'd actually paid his money to NetFlorist.

Gordon, who had just around 100 TikTok followers at the time, taped an emotional message relating her experience, which has since racked up over 350,00 views on the platform.

"She'd put huge effort into advertising for Valentine's on her social media platforms and obviously the thought of losing orders to NetFlorist and her customers being misled, was heartbreaking for her", says Knowler.

As Gordon explained it, while the name Flowers on Kensington appeared on the search, the webpage address or URL was NetFlorist.

When Knowler made NetFlorist MD Ryan Bacher aware of the video, he told her that, like most businesses, they use Google's AI algorithms to decide keywords to "bid" on, and then design their marketing around that.

By the next morning, NetFlorist had added "negative keywords" for Flowers on Kensington so that they could stop bidding on it, and the MD said he was checking with Google to find out how this happened.

To clarify the complex legalities in South Africa, Knowler cites a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal 10 years ago - Cochrane Steel Products v M-Systems Group, where the court ruled that bidding on a competitor's trademark or trade name as a keyword to trigger sponsored search results was not automatically unlawful.

"The judges said that Google's sponsored links are clearly marked as ads, and reasonably observant users shouldn't be confused into thinking the competitor's ad is from the original business....Using a rival's unregistered trademark isn't unlawful under common law, UNLESS it leads to actual passing off, meaning real deception or confusion that misleads the public."

In the case of Flowers on Kensington, the story had a happy ending.

Gordon's viral video elicited an outpouring of support from the community and offers of help from lawyers, marketing professionals and the like.

In a follow-up video, she happily reports that she had to return to the flower market to source more flowers after the business was inundated with orders.

To hear more detail from Wendy Knowler, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article