The Associate Reference

How To Avoid Trademark Infringement When Registering Domain Name

It is a serious offense to violate the Trademark of another company while registering Domain Names. You have to be extra careful while choosing a domain name which has similarity to an existing domain name or business.

Please read this article as it highlights this aspect very nicely.

How To Avoid Copyright Infringement When Registering Domain Name

 by: Stanley Spencer

One of the most important aspects of choosing a domain name is that it should be non-infringing. This is not an easy task since most unique names have already been registered. The number of useful domain names from the marketing point of view have become extremely limited. Several companies now register variations of their trademark names as a preventive measure against infringement. For example, check www.coke.com, www.coca-cola.com, and www.coca-cola.com, or try www.3m.com and www.mmm.com.

All these factors have led to a crisis of domain names and given rise to increasing cases of infringement of domain names. A number of companies have taken legal action against other companies or individuals over alleged copyright violation on the domain names.

There are some fundamental guidelines and cross-checks for selection of a domain name.

You must carefully select some names that are relevant to your business model. You must be able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domain registration should principally consist of a name you are using as a trade name, trademark or corporate name.

It is better to select more than one name since you are not sure about the availability of the required domain name.

Now, search the website of one of the prominent domain name registrars to check if the required name is available. If the name has already been registered by someone else, the search result will provide you with optional names that are similar to your requirements. For example, for the name “ford”, the search result may give you similar names like “aboutford.com” and “fordbusiness.com“.

If the domain name that you are looking has already been registered but there is no content being displayed at the domain, try to find out the details of the owner of the domain. It is possible that he/she may be genuine and have yet not published any content.

It is also possible that the owner does not plan to create a web site and is willing to give you the domain at the original price. You must confirm that the seller has ownership rights for that particular domain name.

Choosing a domain name that is same as or quite similar to another well-known trademark, may lead to legal action. The regulations governing these issues are dealt by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

It is very likely that you would lose right of your domain name if you have intentionally chosen a name similar to another domain name so as to confuse potential visitors to the site. For example, if your site deals in consumer electronics goods made by a Samsung competitor, do not choose the name “samsungbusiness.com” since a court is most likely to pass a verdict that you selected this name to divert attention of Samsung customers.

There could be others reasons of losing a domain name. It may be found that you have never carried out any business under that name or there is no person in your company similar to that name. Another reason could be that you intend to sell that domain name to your competitor for financial gain.

If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowed to continue to use it, inspite of the fact that it is similar to someone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name is governed by certain conditions set by court. For example, Mr. Suki Nokia, who runs a cosmetics business, may be allowed to use the domain name “nokia.kr” but he would be barred from using his site to demonstrate any electronics-related information or advertising.

It is also possible for you to use a domain name that is similar to another’s trademark if your objective is not to criticize the other person’s business.

In the non-cyberworid, two companies may have the same name if they do not conduct a similar business or do not have similar product lines. Roxy Electrical and Roxy Laundry can coexist comfortably. However, in the web world, both Roxies cannot own the “roxy.com” domain name. The laundry Roxy could register under “roxy.laundry” and the electrician under “roxy.electrical.”

A very useful tip is to buy all three of the top level domains - .com, .co.uk and .net. You should also buy all possible misspellings of your domain name before anybody else takes advantage of this fact.

You have put a lot of money and energy into building your business and if you are forced to give up the domain name, your business is likely to suffer due to it. So, you need to put your best efforts in choosing a domain name that is both distinctive and non-infringing.

While registering domain names, it is always better to take legal opinions with respect to trademark infringements. There are also websites that can assist in this respect.

Posted in Domain Names | 2 Comments »

7 Tips For A Smooth Switch To A New Domain

7 Tips For A Smooth Switch To A New Domain touches upon an article that I had found in the March 19, 2007 newsletter issue of SitePro News.

The title of this article was “How To Reduce The Pain Of Switching Domains” authored by Ross Dunn.

Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placements Inc. based in Canada.

In this article, the author has explained in 7 steps how to switch from an existing domain to a new domain without losing the search engine placements and rankings.

What interested me most was step number 6 where he was talking on how to implement a 301 redirect for the “non-www” traffic so that they get forwarded to the preferred “www” version of the domain.

In fact, I feel that this need to be implemented by every web publisher whether they are switching domains or not. This procedure becomes necessary for every domain because search engines view the domain name with and without www as different websites. This leads to dilution of your link popularity and this, in turn, will affect your google page rank.

Ross Dunn has given the code to add to your .htaccess file for a permanent redirect of your “non-www” domain name to your “www” domain name. This will ensure consistency and also make sure that you do not lose out on link popularity and page rank.

Websites developed using Authority Site Center become hugely popular, attracting tons of visitors, within a very short period of time. I would suggest that you should consolidate your advantage further by implementing this 301 redirect code-change to your .htaccess file. In fact, I have already implemented this change to all my websites. It takes hardly 5 minutes per website to implement this change.

(I hope you are already developing your sites using Authority Site Center. If you are among the very unlucky few who are still not a member of Authority Site Center, then I would strongly urge you to become a member without any further delay and take advantage of its superior tools for web publishing and web marketing.)

If you have any difficulty in implementing this change, then send me a comment to this post and I will explain it to you.

Posted in Domain Names | 3 Comments »

Some Basic Facts About Domain Names

Domain Names and web sites are an important part of one’s Affiliate Marketing business. As I mentioned in another article, it is definitely advantageous to have a web site for your Affiliate Marketing business. You could really fast forward it. We will discuss here how to go about getting a good top level domain name.

With the recent explosion in the availability of website domain name suffixes (such as .eu, .ws, .cc and so on) it’s never been easier to grab a domain name that is directly related to the subject matter of your site.

For example, if you want to create a site about Persian Cats, it would make sense to use a domain name including the phrase “persiancat”. Unfortunately, however, other people have had the same idea previously, so persiancat.com is no longer available, nor is persiancat.net, .org, .biz or any other simple domain name with a top level suffix.

Furthermore, it is a fact that most people who are searching on the net are going to give first priority to sites with top level domain names, such as a .com or a .net.

At least partially, this is simply a function of these being the original suffixes, and therefore the average surfer perhaps believes that they have more credibility and authority.

This is especially critical if your website is selling or promoting your business or products, as these factors translate into “trustworthiness” in this situation.

Simply put, a top level domain name is one of your strongest sales tools.

Many people also belive that search engines will give weight to your domain name when considering your site for that all important search engine ranking. In this case, there needs to be some clear relationship between your domain name and site subject, to give you any chance of featuring when people search using Google or Yahoo.

So, what can you do? Well, here’s a couple of very simple tips that may help you to bag that all important top level domain name for your site.

First, try a plural version of your key phrase, rather than the singular version. So, in the example above, you might check out the availability of top level names using persiancats, rather than persiancat.

Truth be told, however, used on its own, this tactic is a bit too obvious, and more often than not, when the singular version of a phrase has gone, then so has the plural.

The second little trick is, however, far more effective and well worth trying if you are looking for a top level name for your site. The trick is - numbers!

Not numbers at the beginning of the domain address - that’s really “old hat” and you only have to look at a list of expired domains to see how many owners of such addresses just allow them to die. Why? Because they don’t work particularly well with either search engines or with real people - and something like “0000persiancats.com” just looks plain silly!

So, that’s not likely to be of much benefit to your site. But, numbers in the “body” of the domain name itself, especially the numbers 2 and 4, very possibly will be.

Why? Well, the number 2 is a simple substitute for the word “to” and 4 can be read as “for”.

Now, tie that in with one other little substitution trick - take the word “you” and substitute the letter “u” - and finding a good top level domain name that still relates very closely to the site subject matter becomes a relatively simple matter.

Let’s take our persiancats example to demonstrate how effective a strategy this can be. Using all three of the highlighted tricks, try searching for “persiancats2u.com” and “persiancats4u.com”. Still available? If not, how about “persiancat4us.com” or “persiancat4me.com”?

Even if all of these are now taken, all it needs is a bit of imagination to create a “.com” domain name that relates directly to your subject matter.

A simple but effective method of grabbing a top level domain name for your site.

By following the above suggestions, I am sure you will be able to grab a very good domain name for your niche area.

Posted in Domain Names | No Comments »