Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Sorry for the two questions in one post but they are very related.

1) Doing a little competitor research I discovered they owned all of their competitor.??? domains except the competitor.NET

I bought it! 

Now, what do I do with it?  I have a few ideas but would appreciate any suggestions.

Thoughts on the ethics of doing this?  I feel a little cut-throat.

2) How important do you think it is to own all of your mySite.??? domains?  What do you do with them?  Simply redirect to the real site?  Any SEO gotchas with doing this?

Thanks.

Old trick in the book, and a foolish one indeed.

Quality over Quantity and you look desperate if you think you are going to actually take away business. Oh Boy, are they going to find out quick when your site lists just under them pretty much automatically because of closeness to their domain.

If they own all the competitor domains, where, or how,.. do you think you will show up in the search engines?  What is your purpose?

I already show up "above the fold" for all of my important keywords with my site - I`m not really concerned about that.

But the name actually works quite well for a different but complimentary purpose.

OK - so buying the competitor.net perhaps a foolish and knee jerk thing to do.  I wasted $10 and learned a lesson.

Back to the 2nd question: Is it important to own all of the main MySite.??? domains for a site? If so, why?  Gauging from the responses here, the answer would be no - anyone who buys them and tries to leverage that against you will "just look desperate."

So, why do companies buy up all their .???s

HouseOfJerkieJanie: My purpose... Well, like I said, my site shows up above the fold for all my important keywords.  My competitors site is page 3 - 4 or further.  I guess I want to keep them there and was thinking perhaps I could do something with the .NET to help keep it that way.

I worked for a long time for a software giant in CA.  Right to the entrance to their main campus was always a big billboard by their competitor.  Same with the competitor: right by the entrance to their main competitor was a big billboard by us.  It was, in a way, sort of fun.  I don`t think either company was desperate nor perceived as such.

I`m not sure that I agree with the "makes you look desperate" comment.

Have you made sure their name isn`t Trademarked?

Very good question and point - I will research that today.

And that is the reason, companies purchase all the domain extensions they can.  Why have something so available for someone else to snap up?  And if the name is trademarked like Coca Cola you`d never be able to get away with using it anyway. They would have lawyers to take care of what you`re trying to do.

You would do a 301 redirect (you can search online for more info on how to do it) and it will redirect directly to the main site.

Good luck!



-------------------------



GSM Cell Phones Unlocked | Unlocked Mobile World Phones | Unlocked Cellular Phones | Sim Free Cell Phones

Vote for me in the StartupNation Home Based 100 Competition