Multiple domain names ........... a arning

[Mpprh]

Hi

I include this as something for website owners to ponder on.

I started with a free domain from netfirms (http://tlp.netfirms.com/). It was the only free hosting I could find without the word free in the URL ! As visitors increased I needed to have my own domain name.

My logic was :

The majority of my visitors come from links and search engines

A very similar URL only works if it is .com, and people try to type it into the browser address bar and make a mistake.

The days of people registering McDonalds and trying to hold McDonalds to ransome are long gone

My site is very small, and not worth anyone trying to pirate a similar name

So, I registered only one name

And http://www.the-languedoc-page.com came into being.

Then, an apparently reputable company, (who have many references on my website) posted an ad on my forum for domain names for sale. Amongst the names for sale was http://www.thelanguedocpage.com Yes click on it !

It has been unsold since February.

Does anyone have any ideas ?

Peter

[Richard-R]

It looks like they got you down has a mark and are trying to get you to buy all variations of your domain, not quite cyder sqatting, more like cyber idenity theft.

You should buy ( if pos) panomidi.net/org etc and sell it to them.

[Deimos]

Quote: “The days of people registering McDonalds and trying to hold McDonalds to ransome are long gone”

Have you seen what Nominet have done to one company. This company registered itunes.co.uk (some time ago), paid, kept the registrations, etc. going – all according to the rules. They did not use it for anything abusive and did not break any written (or unwritten) rules nor good practice, nothing. (The company concerned actually registered it in 2000 – 5 years ago).

However, Nominet seems to have decided that Apple are “more deserving” and have taken the name away from the company and given it to Apple (no compensation, nothing the the company that registered the name). Looks like its going to court now.

So even if you do get a good URL, don't reckon on keeping it if a big business wants it (at least with Nominet).

Ian

[Deimos]

As they look like a small organisation, you can take some satisfaction in that they are having to pay for the domain name they have registered to keep the registration going. The registration expires 22/Feb/2007 so if you can wait until then (note in diary) I would expect them not to bother to renew (if you have not purchased it before then).

Ian

[Buntina]

Hi peter - this is so common, if you register a domain it is always best to buy the similar domains including domains that may be mispelt - they cost nothing

Now - why dont you simply register pano-midi.com? and point it to a page on them on your site 

Then you could set up an exchange 

If need any help to do this quickly and cheaply just shout

[Hegs]

>Hi peter - this is so common, if you register a domain it is always best to buy the similar >domains including domains that may be mispelt - they cost nothing

I presume

I wouldn't worry too much about it, as others have said, wait for the renewal to come up. Search engines will get it right (and, in fact, the dashed version should work better for search engine relevancy).

What I would do, though, is to do a link: query to look for people mistakenly linking to the other site instead of yours and ask them to point them to the correct URL.

[Richard-R]

Not to many moons ago i was subject to a not disimular scam. For the period of about 3 weeks i was getting 4000 unique page views per day more than normal. I only check such things once a week or so. I thought WOW, 30,000+ pages views in a week, ummm seems rather odd that they are only to the home page, and there is no increase in site income from ad's. Not long after this i got an e-mail from some company called direct hits or such like, saying they could not only substain the new unique page views but increase them to at least 10,000+ new unique page views per day......ALL FOR A VERY SMALL FEE OF $30 PER MONTH. After i told them to go F@!K OFF I'm now back to 1,200 unique page views per day on average.

[Mpprh]

Hi

this guy (http://www.thelanguedocpage.com ) has updated his site to show increased visitors this month.

Doubtless as a result of this topic ?

The real world ?

Peter