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petartist
Joined: Mar 30, 2004
# Posts: 2
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Posted: 2004-Mar-30 17:19
Hi, this is my first post, I hope it is in the right place.
I have a company called Art Paw, and I do have a registered trademark on that name. I have a competitor, with a grudge against my company, that has been targeting my name in her meta-tags for several months now. She is now getting top rankings for the plural of my name after purchasing a domain with my name in reverse order and she is using a "mirror" or "doorway page" redirect to her site of a totally different name.
I have advised her that while we are taking no action at this time we are aware of her actions and are documenting it.
What is the best way to handle these situations. We will hire a lawyer as a very last resort (we are small business owners). Will she self destruct by spamming the engines in this way or should I agressivley report the abuse? I found a new site called engine-spam.com and thought about using it, however I do not know enough about them. I hate conflict, and have so far tried ingnoring her tactics, but she just keeps getting bolder.
I welcome any and all advice.
Thanks
Rebecca Collins
[url removed]
[ Message was edited by: JimBot 05/18/2004 09:21 am ]
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14512
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Posted: 2004-Mar-30 17:42
Hi Rebecca and welcome to the forums, it always is hard to see others that exploit and take advantage...I think that as a small business owner, you may have a few choices. I most certainly cannot give you correct legal advice but here are my thoughts.
1) Totally ignore this person's efforts and move on to improving your own site etc
2) Consider setting up your plural domain to 301
3) Understand you are in a niche market that has some competitive activity and search terms will crop up.
Well thats it from me - it's purely *any advise* I am sure others will be able to give you more! 
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petartist
Joined: Mar 30, 2004
# Posts: 2
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Posted: 2004-Mar-30 18:00
Thanks for the very quick & friendly reply.
I do own my plural url, and I'm forwarding it to an intro page. What is 301? Sorry, I'm an artist & designer with limited SEO knowledge. Is it a way to forward domains correctly? I worry about my own redirect for artpaws.com looking like spam, but my clients do try to put an s on my name all the time.
Rebecca
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rackaid
Joined: Oct 27, 2003
# Posts: 87
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Posted: 2004-May-18 17:14
Rebecca,
This is always problematic, especially if someone has a grudge.
Just because someone uses your name or a plural of your name in their meta-tags will do little for their search results. Also consider that the damage may be less than you think. How many people actually search for the plural of your name? If you do not have a strong brand, then this may be a problem.
Some suggestions.
1. If the person/company is using doorway pages or other tricks that do not meet the AUP of search engines like google, then report them.
2. If you own the domain for the plural, consider setting up a mini site 3-5 pages of content that then links to your main site. Be careful in that the content should be unique. Sometimes just forwarding the name does not work and a little minisite will recapture the top search results.
3. Research the legal use of your name in your state and see if the plural version is automatically covered. If so a cease and desist letter from an attorney can be quite powerful.
4. Retaliate. No, I don't mean use their trademarks. Just carefully examine their pages, keywords and SEO to determine how they get top billing for the keyword. Then use their info to re-optimize some of your pages or the mini-site.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2004-May-18 18:18
If you own the trademark on your name, a simple cease and desist letter should suffice. Attorneys generally charge a minimal amount for this sort of thing, and it should be sent certified with a required signature.
This should be enough to get the other party to stop putting your trademarked name on their website. If not, then the attorney should be able to advise you.
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