This story was inspired by a recent broadcast on WMR with Dave Naylor, one of the industry’s well known and most vocal SEOs. My good friend Russ told me about it, and after hearing it I just had to write a parable based on Dave’s comments.
Joe Starts a Business
Once upon a time there was a man who lost his job. Because of the economy and his go-getter attitude, Joe decided to start his own company. Joe was eager to get his new business going, and a big component of it would be online. So Joe went to his favorite search engine and typed in something like ‘buy my .com‘ and minutes later he had registered his business name’s .com address. During the checkout process, he was offered a few other things, including .net, .org and .info extensions for his business. He figured the .com was the only one worth having, so he didn’t get the others.
Soon Joe was getting things in his new business together. He hired a few staff members and starting turning a small profit. He was signing up a few contractors and even a few decent paying gigs.
Problems Arise
Unfortunately Joe was a scammer. His business was growing, but he knew in his mind that it had some problems. Eventually Joe started to have problems with relationships he had started cultivating at the beginning of his new business venture. He started making people mad, promising things he couldn’t deliver and lying to his contractors about payments. One of those people was named Tom, a contractor whom Joe had hired and over the course of only six months had been bilked out of several thousand dollars.
But Tom knew the day would come when he’d cut ties with Joe. He’d been lied to and cheated once already. Unfortunately for Joe, Tom - a business owner himself - had a penchant for revenge.
Tom’s Idea
A few months passed by and Tom was still fuming from being ripped off. He was doing work on the computer one day when he had an idea: one that really excited him. So Tom hopped on his favorite domain registrar and discovered that Joe hadn’t registered his business’s .net domain. So Tom grabbed it up.
Tom was an Internet guy. Tom knew that he could easily copy Joe’s entire website in a matter of minutes using HTTrack, a free software package that lets you download entire websites in the blink of an eye. Within minutes, Tom had an exact duplicate of Joe’s website up on the .net website. He then built a few links back to his website and within a week the search engines had indexed the site.
Since the websites and domains were nearly the same, the search engines started having a little difficulty establishing just who’s was the real site. Both sites had business-name URLs and both started showing up in various business-related searches. Soon Joe took notice that this other website existed. He was confused, but not too worried. The website had everything his did, even the phone number, so he was glad to see the increased exposure.
The Link Strategy
Tom was a patient guy. He waited until everything was indexed by the search engines before he started the next phase of his plan. This step involved buying cheap links from some not-so-safe neighborhoods. Soon his site had links coming in from (and going out to) various Viagra, poker and pharma sites. Tom didn’t need to get many, just enough for the search engines to get a bit more confused about the two websites.
Tom did this for about six months. A few links here, a few there. His site was quickly becoming hated by the search engines for it’s spammy linking and duplicate content.
The Final Blow
Tom’s final step was a beautiful one. After building up plenty of links, confusing the search engines, and creating a bad reputation, he simply did one thing: 301 redirected his .net site to Joe’s.
For those that don’t know what a 301 is, it is a total redirect of one site to another. When the search engines come across this, they give any link weight, value and ‘reputation’ of the old site to the redirected site. Something like this could send your rankings straight to the bottom in no time.
My Thoughts
There are a lot of legal issues here, which I’m not even about to tackle. But I think the lesson is clear: spending the few dollars to buy your .net .org and .info domains is worth it. Your business is probably your livelihood, and being online is becoming more and more of a must-have than a must-also-do. Protecting your brand is paramount, especially for those just starting out.
Could Joe sue Tom? Probably. But what would be the cost vs just paying Tom what he was owed? And what about the hassles? Can you afford to have this kind of negative exposure to your domain online? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on your brand, how much you value it, and how much it plays into the overall search volume for gaining future clients. Obviously the easy lesson here is that you shouldn’t be a sheister business owner. Pay those that you say you will.
Are there people that would do this? Absolutely.
What are the long term effects of this happening? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to find out, either.
Do you side with Joe or Tom, or neither? Did Tom act outside of his rights? What about the ethics involved? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this parable.
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