Who has the rights?

uh..

[sincraft]

Approximately 6 years ago, a friend of mine purchased a website, mostly to post up a brochure of his fee's for computer consulting. Recently he asked me to put his website up for him. I thought by now he already had one up so I did a yahoo search for it and found someone already had the name of his website with a .net and .org behind it.
THe problem is, it is a rather unique name. If you do a search in yahoo or google for it, this other guys VERY amateur website comes up - who happens to do the same line of work of course.
IE : example.com not up but business name has been registered and DBA'd for 6 years.

while example.net and example.org are being taken by someone else who have their site up and running.

Is my client screwed? The 'vulcher' as we like registered his site just recently.

Any suggestions?

S

[edited by: Woz at 11:10 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2004]
[edit reason] examplified examples. [/edit]

[ska_demon]

Looks like you are going to have to do some slick SEO and outrank the competition. This will take time but is more than possible. Anyhow, is the company name search a viable one? By this I mean are people likely to type in the company name or actually search for what this guy does.

Ska

[sincraft]

You would seriously be surprised how many people type in the name of the company because they are unsure of the web address into yahoo/google. Even though they already know it.
IE: exampleexample.com - they will go into yahoo and type in the search box: example example

So what will come up is this guys website and both his .net and .org derivatives , and hopefully the .com one. Which also in itself brings a quandry as many people pick the 2nd or 3rd entries as usually people don't click on the first link unless it's exclusive.

S

[davezan]

Pardon but...I don't see the relevance of your question to your thread.

So does your friend have his own domain name?

Is his domain name the same as the .net and .org?

Who has the .com?

Sorry, I don't really understand your post. But I'll try to help.

[sincraft]

Friend owns .com - no site up as of yet, wants me to put it up for him. Has owned the name for 6 years and has also been DBA'n under that business name in several states.

Recently checked and found someone else owns the .net and .org names. They are running a very amateur and ugly website with the same services in a different but somewhat close state.

Name is rather unique.

[buckworks]

So put up the .com site, start promoting it, and aim at whatever SEO targets you want.

Unless his business name has been formally trademarked (and for long enough) to give him grounds for a legal challenge, he'll just have to live with the fact that someone else has active sites on the .net, .org etc. versions of the name.

[StupidScript]

Unless his business name has been formally trademarked

And not just in his home town or home state, but nationwide and even worldwide ... all have different, separate jurisdictions and processes.

i.e.
Joe's Pizza: Local
California Muffler: Statewide
U.S. Site Design: Nationwide
IBM: Worldwide

If your friend's market is statewide or local, optimize for that. Likewise nationwide or worldwide.

Do a bit of keyword research along with keeping an eye on your log files (after the site is up) and you can probably beat the heck out of the other guy by intelligently exploiting the terms people use to find y'all.

On the plus side, I know if I am shopping for something, the .com carries more authority than a .net or .org or whatever, so you've got that going for you.

[sincraft]

Thanks gents.

I really appreciate it.