How best to rank for another site's domain and name

[Drn55]

This question relates to a hobby website, not a business. There's no money at stake, only egos.

Let me present a hypothetical situation. Say I have a site called allaboutbadgers.co.uk, and my main competitor is the English Badger Society, who own the domain englishbadgersociety.co.uk. Again, all hypothetical. As far as I know, there is no English Badger Society.

I rank them on every phrase to do with badgers on Google.co.uk, but I don't rank at all for the phrase "English Badger Society", and I want to because we're currently arguing with each other over who's got the biggest web karma. I'm guessing that it would be next to impossible to ever oust them from the number 1 spot for this phrase, as the domain name makes them such a strong contender, but I'd like to give it a shot.

Two things I've considered:

1. Start a topic on my forum called "English Badger Society - Anyone a member". This would give me title and header tags on one page with the phrase, as well as lots of text discussing them.

2. Start a page called allaboutbadgers.co.uk/english-badger-society.php, where I list all the badger societies and clubs around the world. Less than ethical, I know, but it would have the phrase in the URL as well as title and header tags.

Would these approaches work, and can anyone think of any other ways to challenge them in Google for their own phrase and domain name? As it's a hobby site, spending money is not an option.

[david64]

There are two ways:

1 - Get the other site penalised
2 - Get lots of links with the keyword you want to come up for

The former won't cost any money, but it not something you should do nor is it likely to be something you will be able to do easily. The later will be expensive and a waste of time. It will also be very difficult if the other site's domain name is an exact match of the search term.

[I, Brian]

This question relates to a hobby website, not a business. There's no money at stake, only egos.

...

Would these approaches work, and can anyone think of any other ways to challenge them in Google for their own phrase and domain name? As it's a hobby site, spending money is not an option.

You could always offer to buy their website. :)

Otherwise, I think better to keep this board focused on how to promote and market your company, not how to damage competitors.

[sirearl]

You could always offer to buy their website. :)

Otherwise, I think better to keep this board focused on how to promote and market your company, not how to damage competitors.

Agree not a subject for discussion IMHO.

Earl

[Drn55]

Otherwise, I think better to keep this board focused on how to promote and market your company, not how to damage competitors.

If ranking higher than someone is damaging competitors, then I would expect every business to attempt to do the same thing. Isn't that what SEO is all about - to rank as high as possible for relevant keywords and phrases?

[sirearl]

If ranking higher than someone is damaging competitors, then I would expect every business to attempt to do the same thing. Isn't that what SEO is all about - to rank as high as possible for relevant keywords and phrases?

Yep but there are some areas a gentleman does not go,even a lowly snake oil salesman.

As Brian said working on your own site will do you more good.

Earl

[justinmarch]

As far as my limited legal knowledge goes this is called passing off and you can be sued and rightly so IMHO

[I, Brian]

If ranking higher than someone is damaging competitors, then I would expect every business to attempt to do the same thing. Isn't that what SEO is all about - to rank as high as possible for relevant keywords and phrases?

You're talking about a matter of ego, though, with no business or economic incentive.

Companies will bid on Adwords for competitor names, but as justinsmith points out as well, trying to purposefully damage a competing business (or other organisation) is an invitation to litigation.

We should be focused on the positives - making a website better and business more efficient for their purpose - not trying to find ways to damage others, which is not constructive IMO.

[justinmarch]

Companies will bid on Adwords for competitor names, but as justinsmith points out as well, trying to purposefully damage a competing business (or other organisation) is an invitation to litigation./quote]

Who is justinsmith are you trying to invite litigation :p

[quote=I, Brian;1044114]You're talking about a matter of ego, though, with no business or economic incentive.

I realised my post looks like I'm having a go at David (which I wasn't) this is a slippery slope IMHO.

[david64]

If ranking higher than someone is damaging competitors, then I would expect every business to attempt to do the same thing. Isn't that what SEO is all about - to rank as high as possible for relevant keywords and phrases?

To an extent. Although one thing you will come across, particularly among more progressive SEOs is that by engaging in SEO you can hurt yourself in other areas.

I,Brian recently posted a quote from Seth Godin:

"Does showing up in the search engines matter? If so, for what terms? At what cost? Will we be willing to compromise any of the things above in order to achieve this goal?"

Let's say for example you have your badger site and you want to outrank the Badger Society for their own name. You have the two options I mentioned above. If you take the first option (getting them penalised) as someone who has no knowledge or experience of doing such a thing you would likely leave some footprint that could be traced back to you. If the Badger Society found out about that and ran an expose, that could be all you need to irreparably damage your site/business. If you take the other option and try and brute-force your way to the top for , you are again going to ruffle the feathers of the Badger Society; who sound like they are authorities in the field and may well bring the hammer down on you. Another option that has just come to mind is CGI hijacking. Again, something that is going to get you a bad rep.

Then if you move away from negative (black hat SEO) on to grey hat SEO, you again risk your reputation for the sake of manipulating search engines, whci can be short term. Let's say you have a site selling gear for badger baiters and you keep coming over to my badger blog and dropping thin, absolute garbage comments to try and get higher rankings. You will have totally lost my respect if I ahd any for you, if I didn't know your company I would [B]NEVER use you and I would also tell all my badger baiting freinds to aviod you. Just in the same way that I would never use any of the IT/web companies who drop me cold emails and comment spam.

Crap SEO may get you rankings, but the point people are trying to make is that it may not be worth it if they way you achieve it involves upsetting website owners.

[cmcp]

I'm guessing that it would be next to impossible to ever oust them from the number 1 spot for this phrase, as the domain name makes them such a strong contender, but I'd like to give it a shot.

Certainly not the case. Inbound links (quality not quantity), well structured pages and potent content should see you on a good path.

Play detective to see what links he has. Then get better ones.

[ComputerCoders]

Generally, it is best to consider a wider range of your competitors rather than focusing on just one.

[TheSlackers]

The question is though, if the searcher is looking for "The badger society" will ranking for that term actually convert? After all your site is not what they are looking for. You might well find that all you do is up your bounce rate.