How much of a problem is this likely to cause in promotion? Buying the name from the squatter is not an option I could have afforded to register it, but even if I wanted to reward that business model I couldn't afford to. What particularly concerns me is that had intented to do a fair bit of targeted print promotion when the site is ready, and I don't want to lose half my type-ins to people getting the enom placeholder page that the squatter left there.
If you didn't think the domain was important before, it probably isn't any more important now.
I also hadn't thought nearly so much about details of promotion when I registered the domain as I have since. They don't teach that in a straight CS program at college (nor in the math program, which was my other major) and I hadn't been hanging out at WebmasterWorld very long. "Preferred Member" should be read as "loudmouth", nothing to do with how long I've been here. ;)
Obviously the mistake was made when I registered the domain, but I'm asking the more experienced here how bad a mistake it was, really.
I haven't seen offline promotion work all that well for a pure-web effort. So maybe this domain name issue did you a favor in re-directing your efforts.
If I were in this situation, I'd keep the offline promotion minimal for a test period. If the ROI pays, then dive in full force, knowing you don't need to worry about typo losses.
I agree. If you use word of mouth, you may have a problem. If your promotion is purely web based, I don't think you have a problem. I have a similar situation with one of my local websites. Knowing that I would promote it verbally, I registered widgets.la (I do business in the Los Angeles area), widgetsla.com and widgets-la.com. I did not place much weight on the .org or .net. All of my other domains use keywords or business names and are promoted only on the web. I tend to think that users don't pay too much attention to the domain name when there is a link to click.
We've got SuperWidgets.com ... someone came along and registered SuperWidgets.us and then another guy registered SupeWidgets.com.
These two guys BOTH try to capitalize on my name, both advertise near me and try to steal my traffic. This is a BIG issue. Not only are they taking my traffic (@$&*^!), they're sullying my brand name because when you visit SupeWidgets.com it looks like garbage and the product offering is terrible.
My company is in the final stages of having our name trademarked - but until that is complete we can't do anything. Even a "cease and desist" letter doesn't scare them away.
My lesson was learned. So was yours, apparently. Now go forth and register every available permutaton of your domain name now, before more parasites get them and work on stealing MORE of your traffic. :)
The mistake can be compounded by putting all of your work into the site, making it high-traffic, and thereby increasing the value of his domain. Depending on the mental awareness of the phrase keyword1keyword2 when your potential visitor first sits down at the keyboard, my own experience indicates that approx. 20% of your future traffic may be at risk.
I had the same thing happen. However, I had registered my domain a couple months before, and contacted and negotiated with the other person, persuasively arguing that I was first, that I am well into the project, and that having two businesses with a similar name didn't make sense (to the honest businessperson, of course ;)).
Well, it happened that this person was a regular guy, like me. Fairly reasonable and after several emails, he agreed to sell me the domain at cost.
The moral of the story: There are still some decent people in the world and you should at least make an effort to contact this other person and nip their plans in the bud.
People can be money-grubbing, liars and thieves but the opposite still holds true with many many people who remain true to principles like honor and fair play.
Sometimes retreat is the best strategy.
No shame in going back to the drawing board, especially if you will be coming back in a stronger position. Armed with this experience, that would surely be the case.
Or your other option is go bloody postal on them. But it sounds like you have a tiny thing right now and it would not be worth it. I usually register the most common forms, hyphen, no-hyphen, common acronyms, and short-cut versions for my empire names. Then if someone registers a miss spelling I know it is intentional. They are after my pot of gold. I still don't do anything unless they develop a site or make profit off the domain. But the second they make profit go for the throat. I go full postal. Bring out the lawyers and the UDRP.
