Submitting different machine names with one URL to SE's.

[destin-ation]

I ran across a competitor’s website that is using two machine names (one of which is the URL of my website) in front of their URL and submitting to search engines. Same info, however the layout is a bit different. Both websites have been picked up by search engines, one of which can be confused as being associated with my website. If this is legal with search engines, then it could get very confusing with a website using the name of their competitor’s website in front of their URL. For example…I could start a website named “searchengine.home.webproworld.com” and “search.home.webproworld.com” and submit to search engines. Has anyone run across this before? Is this a common SEO technique? Or…is this a search engine violation that can be reported. Any insight would be appreciated as to how to approach this situation.

[KeithO]

I can't say as I've ever heard of this practice before but I can tell you that submitting to a SE is pointless.

[ADAM Web Design]

That's a new one!

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

Site B creates sitea.siteb.com as a near-mirror of sitea.com to throw off the SEs and trick them into thinking it's duplicate content spam, correct?

If that's the case, it probably won't work for them, and here's why:

1) sitea.com is a domain site and sitea.siteb.com is a subdomain site. Domain sites carry more weight.

2) sitea.siteb.com has to be promoted enough for an SE to want to index it. As KeithO pointed out, submission in and of itself won't cut it. They're gonna have to do some field work.

3) The IP address associated with sitea.siteb.com will likely be very close to siteb.com's IP address, and nowhere near the IP address for sitea.com (unless you two happen to use the same host, which I'd say is pretty unlikely).

4) If you promoted properly (and if a competitor is pilfering you, you may well have), you'll have enough inbound links for an SE to determine that your site carries some weight.

In other words, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You may want to send an email off to the SEs to let them know about it, but that's about as far as I'd take it.

[amabaie]

Good answer ADAM. It makes perfect sense. But what if the content is not identical, just similar, and what if siteb.com promotes the subdomain.

I tend to agree that it should not be a big issue, if sitea.com is doing its promotions well. But, I would still be wary. Even a loser can still cause a lot of damage on his way out (Saruman, for instance?)

[regmanabq]

Wouldn't you have some recourse legally, provided of course that you trademarked your domain or company name?

I'd love to see the lawsuit over such subdomains as:

McDonalds.burgerking.com, or say; yahoo.google.com, or how about foxnews.abc.com?

[chocolate4free]

Even if you have NOT copyrighted your trading name you DO have intellectual property rights.

This situation when someone is using your business name and operating in the same business arena as yourself is called passing off and is a breach of your intellectual property rights.

If your competitors are using your name, design etc you can try to seek recompense.
Depending on the type of domain name itself i.e. co.uk or .com you can contact Nominet (.co.uk) or ICANN to discuss what action you can take.
You can dispute the domain name registration and in some cases the domain name may be canecelled.

In addition to this I would contact a lawyer who specialises in intellectual property law for some free advise to see if it is worth instigating a case against your competitor. Incidentally, if a court rules in your favour your competitor has to pay your court costs. (Under UK Law - you may have to check this depending on your location)

"Cheats never prosper!"

[nottheusual1]

and invoke the DMCA - that will get everyone's attention. Their host/ISP will get involved because if it does end up in litigation, they are just as responsible $$-wise. Usually, it only takes a couple of letters. The host/ISP won't risk getting dragged into court to defend some $50-a-month jerk they host for.

All the DMCA says is that the **potential** for copyright infringement has to exist and a whole lot of $$ liabilities become real and accrue DAILY. And, the host/ISP is responsible for enforcement once brought to their attention.

These laws were obviously written to protect major corporaions, but a valuable side-effect has been that we all can use them. I don't think that was the plan, though <<chuckle>>.

:not_the_usual1
[you decide]

[ADAM Web Design]

The DMCA only works in America. In most countries, it depends on the copyright law of that country or province/state or region.

[suesheboy]

I hate to say it but get a lawyer at once.

They can do tremedious damage.

I also hat to say these things take time. I am 5 years into a patent and trademark battle with the first of 4 companies ripping me off.

I am expecting my first check sometime next week. It was well worth the wait.

[savvy]

The same thing happened to me. Saw my web site name(domain name) on several competitors search with their url. Directing traffic to their site with my web site name.

The interesting thing about these sites is there was no contact info for them. Some of them were based in the UK. I contacted both Google and Yahoo which is where the searches were found while searching for my site.

I e-mailed Yahoo and Google. Yahoo sent me an email back saying "if I didn't want my site listed to not submit it to search engines or contact the web site owner and ask them to stop".

Google never responded.

Does anyone really read these e-mails sent to Yahoo and Google?

I couldn't believe the stupidity and I still see my web site name on many competitors site with their urls. Also, see it in ads from shopping site I once had a merchants account on (Bizrate)

What can you do?

Savvy

[espectations]

I had a case with a client of mine that registered www.investmentwarehouse.com

After we launched the web site we discovered that there was a site: www.investmentwarehouse.com.au

No matter what we did, we struggled to get www.investmentwarehouse.com for example in Dmoz.org

I even communicated with the editors to explain that this business was based in South Africa and has nothing to do with investmentwarehouse.com.au

Recently FICA laws in South Africa lead to my client closing his online business as the changes basically made it impossible to conduct any investment business online in South Africa - the domain name is now for sale.

So I could very well believe that this will happen.......

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by espectations

I had a case with a client of mine that registered www.investmentwarehouse.com

After we launched the web site we discovered that there was a site: www.investmentwarehouse.com.au

No matter what we did, we struggled to get www.investmentwarehouse.com for example in Dmoz.org.

Sorry to change the subject - but you've just given the perfect example of why it's important to do a little searching before you buy that "perfect" domain name! It can be such a difficult battle if someone else has already branded that identity.

I'm currently working with a community site that has a similar domain to another site owned by an unethical webmaster who has been banned in several places - ours is .org, his is .com. It's a headache and a half to convince directories that our site isn't the old one with a slightly different name.

Okay, back on topic - my question is how generic is the name of your site? If their version is as specific as foxnews.abc.com, then yeah you have a problem. But if it's more generic, as in abc.foxnews.com, then you may have to let it go.

[espectations]

Well, just so you know we did research to establish if there were similar names.

But .com.au was not something that we thought of - neither did we find anything until we finished the web site and launched it. Our target market was International offshore workers. We researched the top 40 listings in search engines and at the time (3 years ago) did not find this .com.au address listed under the top 40 listings. It was only later on when we started to dig that we ran into it.

The .com.au site did not show up on any of the targeted keywords and search terms we searched for either when we did our homework.

I think the problem is that good domain names are now becoming very scarce. I just reported this as it happened. In my personal opinion nobody bothered to look at the web sites - if they did they would have seen it is two different sites with different content.

The point that I wanted to make is that it is possible that this type of thing could happen as the web is so vast.....

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by espectations

Well, just so you know we did research to establish if there were similar names.

espectations, I wasn't inferring you didn't do the research - really! Besides, the .com.au site might have launched after you!

I was just making the same point you concluded with - that...

Originally Posted by espectations

this type of thing could happen as the web is so vast

[sem-seo-pro]

Hi All

First let me say that hiring a lawyer to file a notice of intent to sue will usually get the ISP to warn the site owners of removal if they don't comply.

There are also other ways to do what I call an end around.

Build a subdomain yourself such as

sitea.siteb.sitea.com

or for added fun just give them a taste of their own medicine

build a subdomain using their website first.

siteb.sitea.com

Caveman say fight Fire with Fire

Also please note while these sites maybe overseas entities, if they are playing on the dot.com of the search engines here in the US, you can have their sites removed under DMCA.

The DMCA covers the Uinted States, and since Google Msn & Yahoo are all US based corporations, they must follow the law.

So overseas entities may not have to comply with the DCMA, however the sites based in the US, that list them do :)

As a side note if you file a DMCA with Yahoo the offending site is removed no questions asked, and the removed site will not be able to challenge the action. Yahoo has no method of recourse.

Google will notify the parties involved of a DMCA filing, allow reasonable explanantion, and then advise if it will remove your site or advise the other party why it will not.

I have no what MSN will do but whatever it is they will have to comply with DMCA, one way or the other.

Lastly in closing you could be really evil and backorder their domain name for when it expires. If they slip up, it would be yours to buy. Since most of the webmasters pulling tricks like these a single person entities, there would be low odds of any legal recourse.


Have fun!!

Clint