So Panda made you delete "thin pages"?

[viggen]

...today i got a mail request by a governmental education site to link to three of my pages (.edu), (which i happily granted).

Those three pages would be considered by many here as thin pages, they are just a hub page basically serving to click to my actual content pages, to give me a little internal sitemap to spread links to various related other pages, its duplicted content, its a slow loading page thanks to a big image above the fold and has lots of ads and lots of internal inks to commercial pages of mine, but it is still considered good enough for the Government,

...so lesson learned, if you think your page is good for your visitor stop acting as Google runs your site...

[numnum]

maximillianos,

Of course, if the domain is used for a permitted purpose, the use is fair and hence protected -- e.g., www.knownbrand-critique.com. I think that's common knowledge. (That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the courts have carved out certain narrow exceptions.)

But in the scenario to which I refer, a trademark owner (www.knownbrand.com) has since the late '90s explicitly prohibited the use of its mark in any other domain name, and certain newer domains have used the mark for other than permitted purposes. The use of the mark at these domains creates a likelihood of confusion, which is the litmus test for trademark infringement. As I noted, my best guess is that the trademark owner acquiesced in widespread infringement over a period of years, thereby losing its trademark rights.

But the issue at hand is whether the algo can be refined to level the playing field as between www.knownbrand-land.com (infringement) and www.widgets.com/knownbrand (no infringement). I'm the boy scout with the latter URL.

[tedster]

I wouldn't be surprised if the courts have carved out certain narrow exceptions.

I've recently been studying a thick book on Internet law, and you're right - the courts as well as other civil arbitrators have created quite a jungle of precedents on domain names at this point and lot of it is apparently contradictory.

However, using a trademark in the filepath is a very different critter.

so lesson learned, if you think your page is good for your visitor stop acting as Google runs your site

Especially in light of this more recent discussion: [webmasterworld.com...]