Using competitors domain with different ending to boost traffic

Question

Imagine my competitor is getting 1000s of views a day and is established in Google search engine.

I plan to launch my website in a weeks time but will have to work hard to get into google search results

If my competitor has the domain www.example.com , can I buy the domain www.example.co.uk and then redirect that to my website?

I figure some people may accidentally put .co.uk instead of .com

Would this me illegal in any way , or is it fair game as they haven't bought the domain, meaning I could possibly look to selling it to them?

Answer 1

I'm not sure of the term but it's similar to coming out with a soda and calling it Koka-Kola and hoping you can get away with it. You won't.

If you are going to compete, compete with superior products and service instead of trickery.

Answer 2

First, as already pointed out, it's trickery and unlikely to serve you well.

Someone typing in a specific domain name knows what site they want, and it isn't yours; how do you suppose they'll react to being duped? I certainly can't imagine it'll be a positive reflection on your business.

And do enough people actually type a URL into the address bar to make this worthwhile?

On the legal point, I'm not a lawyer but it might be construed as cybersquatting. In US law this is described as a domain name registrant who:

• Has a bad faith intent to profit from the mark

• Registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that is:

  • Identical or confusingly similar to a distinctive mark
  • Identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of a famous mark

A quick Google search reveals similar laws in other jurisdictions. If you're determined to proceed, I strongly recommend you take professional legal advice first.

Answer 3

I've been on the other end of this scenario. It was a couple of years ago, but I can't imagine much has changed. We held the trademark on the domain name—let's say we were ExtraSpecialVeeblefetzers.com, so a competitor opened up ExtraSpecialVeeblefetzers.co.uk.

So I dashed off a letter that we were going to file a complaint, not with the trademark office, but with ICANN. The reason this was a good way to go is that to even defend yourself in this kind of situation required a prohibitive amount of paperwork. I pointed out that whether we won or lost, he was about to be in for a huge, several-months-long bureaucratic pain in the tuchus either way.

The next day we got an email from him saying he'd reconsidered his strategy and "didn't feel good about" what he'd done, and he closed down ExtraSpecialVeeblefetzers.co.uk.

Your guys may not be as astute as I was. But they also don't have to warn you before filing the complaint. Personally, I would steer clear of it entirely, myself. For the few days he had it up, some of our customers began sending him really nasty letters (we had a lot of customer loyalty, it was a very well-liked brand.) People see that and they assume you're a creep... You might wind up losing more business than you gain from a stunt like that. People are savvy and don't trust doing business with people that can't succeed on their own merits.

Answer 4

First off, how are you going to get traffic to that domain? Google aren't going to index it if it simply redirects to your domain. If you use any other means to promote traffic to your site through this other domain you're running the risk of being guilty of fraud.

Secondly, Nominet (the UK registry) have strict rules about malicious domain registration; and this would probably qualify under that, meaning your competitor could take the domain off you. http://www.nominet.uk/domains/resolving-uk-domain-disputes-and-complaints/#abusive

Thirdly and finally, if the domain is registered in the UK there is the danger of a passing off offence. Unlikely if you're just redirecting it, but IANAL and I would not want to risk that.

Answer 5

This is unfortunately a common practice on the internet and so there is a generally accepted process which many domain owners avail themselves of and that is to contact the registrar of the offending similar domain name with a trademark infringement, in most instances the domain registrar will either disable the offending domain name and quarantine it, or change the ownership of the domain name to the owner of the authentic domain name and allow them to configure it to forward to their own domain name.

It should also be noted that this does not give you any advantage in your Google ranking as Google treats example.com example.org and example.net as 3 completely different domains, additionally, while the exact algorithm used to calculate the page rank is secret and proprietary Google has stated in the past that the system penalises the rank for such sites as they are commonly used for fraudulent purposes rather than for improving your Google ranking.

I had this done to a site I managed in the past, the site was registered to example.com.au and was an e-commerce site with around 10'000 unique hits a day, a foreign entity registered example.net.au, example.com, and example.net and duplicated the front page and login of the site in an attempt to capture user login details. This was identified by a regular check I did on Google at the time to check for copyright infringement on the site and I located these sites in the Google search results. Within 48 hours the domains where shut down, hosting shutdown and I had control of the offending domains under copyright infringement and trademark infringement, I did have to get a lawyer involved but didn't take much effort. The moral I would have to say is not to attempt shady practices like what you are suggesting and instead invest in creating a sound and useful site which will attract users on its own and not through users mis-typing a URL.

Answer 6

Why not offer to redirect it to their site, for a fee?

We have http://www.example.co.za/ which is a website about the mango fruit growers. We also have an airline called Mango Airlines, with a website http://www.example.com.

Often, people, including often me, enter the wrong one. Instead of trying to sell you fruit when you're trying to book an air ticket, they have a simple pop-up add for the airline, which I'm sure they get paid for.

No trickery!!

Answer 7

It can work.

I know of a European manufacturing company with a presence in America. The American branch doesn't own their own .com. Instead, their largest customer has the .com. They don't fight for their domain because they don't want to tick off their largest customer.

The situation you're describing may be slightly less obtrusive than the scenario I'm describing, if the company you're talking about has no intentions of bothering with the UK market. I still don't recommend it for some of the reasons described by other answers in the article, but I'm just pointing out that it is possible (even if it is rather unlikely) for things to work out semi-positively for the person who does this.

Answer 8

If the "example" in example.com is a generic word in your field, like "lawnmower" (for a mower sales site), then it can't be a trademark for goods related to lawnmowing. The word is generic and lacks distinctiveness; excluding it from acting as a [registered] trademark or service mark. Go ahead.

If, however, the word "example" is a trademark (not necessarily a registered one) then as other answers point out you have a trademark or (in UK law) "passing off" problem. ICANN (or another registry) may step in if it's spoofing, or where the established site has a trademark but I don't think they have legal cause to interfere otherwise.

The idea of using a different ggTLD probably worked well as an SEO hack a decade or so ago, but search engines are a lot more clued in now. If the .com targets UK customers then you'll probably get a deal of traffic, but it's basically typo squatting.

IME most people type the domain name into a Google search box (!), and then click the first result. For real. You're not going to get any traffic from those people.