Not owning .com domain of our website

[Tahirfayyaz]

I have been running our online store on the .co.uk domain for the last 4 years and recently tried to buy the .com domain but the company wants a ridiculous amount of $200000

Do you think in the long run it will be a mistake not owning the .com domain and since I am launching a new version of our website that it might be a good time to consider changing the domain name slightly so that I own the .com domain

I am just worried that promoting it as it currently is we might have the following effects;

- losing traffic by people going to the .com domain

- chance that a company buys the .com domain and therefore get confused between the two companies

- Possible future investors maybe put of by the fact we do not own the .com domain

Would love to hear your thoughts

Tahir

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Is the domain name your brand name?

 

[fisicx]

If the .com site doesn't exist then don't sweat it. If someone does try to pass themselves off as you then you can soon get them taken down.

This really isn't something to get too stressed over.

 

[Tahirfayyaz]

well yes its our company and brand name (we dont sell our own products but other brands)

what can I do to stop someone from starting an online store say in the USA under the .com domain?

Thanks

 

[alpha7158]

Are they using the domain for anything. ICANN wanted to put a stop to people buying domains, not using them and then trying to sell them for more than they are worth. If you contact ICANN or seek free legal advice you may find that you are legally entitled to purchase the domain at a much cheaper price if the owners of it don't do anything with it.

 

[fisicx]

You can't. In the same way you can't stop someone setting up yourbrandname.us or yourbrandname.ce or yourbrandname.de.

Unless you have some sort of intenrational trademark there is nothing you can do, except complain to the authorities. Even then this will only work if they are trying to pass themselves off as you.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

well yes its our company and brand name (we dont sell our own products but other brands)

what can I do to stop someone from starting an online store say in the USA under the .com domain?

Thanks

Question to ask, is does it matter if they do? And if so, what do they have to do to make it matter to you. Then maybe work around it to address those individual components rather the actual domain issues.

 

[awebapart.com]

If having just the .co.uk is good enough for these companies:

www.pcworld.co.uk (UK computer retailer)
www.pcworld.com (PC magazine publisher)

www.comet.co.uk (UK electronics retailer)
www.comet.com (technology company)

www.thomson.co.uk (the UK holidays company)
www.thomson.com (business information company)

then having just the .co.uk is probably good enough for most UK focused companies. Having the .com is a 'nice to have' and is the ideal situation, but it is not a 'must have'. Especially if you are just focused on the UK market and the .com site is focused elsewhere, in a different market (or just a parked domain not focusing on anything).

 

[Silent Web Solutions]

If having just the .co.uk is good enough for these companies:

Another one is twitter.co.uk is not owned by twitter.com but the .co.uk extension gets a massive amount of daily traffic from people thinking that they are the original twitter.

 

[alpha7158]

If having just the .co.uk is good enough for these companies:

www.pcworld.co.uk (UK computer retailer)
www.pcworld.com (PC magazine publisher)

www.comet.co.uk (UK electronics retailer)
www.comet.com (technology company)

www.thomson.co.uk (the UK holidays company)
www.thomson.com (business information company)

then having just the .co.uk is probably good enough for most UK focused companies. Having the .com is a 'nice to have' and is the ideal situation, but it is not a 'must have'. Especially if you are just focused on the UK market and the .com site is focused elsewhere, in a different market (or just a parked domain not focusing on anything).

The thing with this is that the owner of the alternative domain is not a competitor. Where not owning a .com and only the .co.uk becomes an issue is in this context.

 

[awebapart.com]

In the OP's case, the .com equivalent is just a parked domain, probably owned by some US guy/company who is cybersquatting on it in the hope that someone is going to pay $200,000 for it.

That guy is unlikely to start a competitive site, the small chance that he does, it will probably be US-based.

It is also unlikely that anyone is going to start up in competition with that name either, if they are faced with a $200,000 initial domain purchase.

The main worry is perhaps that of a larger company, wanting the domain. But even some large companies don't bother with those sort of branding domains, e.g. one of the biggest, Tescos, have a clothing brand called Cherokee but they didn't bother with any domains (Walmart/Asda on the other hand do have george.com), and the similar sounding Urban Spirit clothes brand in Peacocks doesn't have its own domain (at least not the obvious ones), etc

If the OP is really that worried about brand protection, I wonder if they have trademarked their name?

The ICANN dispute resolution is an interesting idea, and I would be interested to hear if any small UK companies in a similar situation have had any success getting .coms this way. Generally as far as domain disputes go, I think UK companies are in a stronger position when disputing .co.uk domains with Nominet, and in a less strong position when disputing .com domains with ICANN. Archive.org suggests that the OP's .com domain was initially registered before the .co.uk (around 2001) so this might weaken the dispute argument too.

 

[astutiumRob]

- losing traffic by people going to the .com domain

why would that be happening - do you advertise as the .com ? is it on your brochures ? are your potential customers the kind that dont realise what a .co.uk is ?

- chance that a company buys the .com domain and therefore get confused between the two companies

very unlikely someone is going to buy the .com form the current owners and "accidentally" trade as you, and deliberate passing off will cost them the domain in a UDRP claim

- Possible future investors maybe put of by the fact we do not own the .com domain

maybe - if that's a real concern you have to weigh up the investment potential with the cost of acquiring the .com with the cost of rebranding to a new name that is available in both.

If you contact ICANN or seek free legal advice you may find that you are legally entitled to purchase the domain at a much cheaper price if the owners of it don't do anything with it.

Complete rubbish - not (appearing to) use a domain doesnt not affect how much you can acquire it for, or confer any ability or right to buy it.

 

[alpha7158]

Complete rubbish - not (appearing to) use a domain doesnt not affect how much you can acquire it for, or confer any ability or right to buy it.

If someone is squatting on a domain name and the name of the domain can be seen to breach your trademark then you can have a case. If they were then using the same name to trade under then your case would be further strengthened.

So it is not complete rubbish.

Here is a very recent news story of apple winning a case (7th Jan 2010) for just this:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/07/apple-domain-names/
Here is a quote from the article:

When you own domain names associated with the trademarks of a large company, more often than not, they're going to file a complaint with the ICANN UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). And more often than not, they're going to win control of the name. Such was the case yesterday with 16 names related to Apple that one man happened to own.

 

Most important aspect is that you rank highly on the engines for the products you sell as far as generating traffic is concerned.

Anyone else having the .com can not touch you if they are on page 3.

Plus as others have said passing off will have them taken down.

Earl

 

[h20ho]

You could think about modifying the name a little:

IE: Qualityproduct.co.uk
Quality-products.com
or something similar.

 

[MASSEY]

I didn't pay attention to the domains for my ltd business, now two different companies are holding the .com and .co.uk fortunately i do not really need them i have domains which are keyword relevant for the seo plus side and click potential,

if i was to contact icann about that, would they be given to me......

sorry for the post in a post

 

[berrywoods]

id only be interested in owning my .com domain should i start selling internationally which is unlikey, its finding theres a competitor with a very closely related name which is worse... i 100% came up with my company name one day driving to chelmsford, (Berrywoods Pets) looking on google some weeks later theres a company called Berriewoods Wholesale also based in essex who sell pet products... very very bad luck..

 

[edmondscommerce]

Ideally always purchase the .co.uk and the .com at the same time.

However if your domain is 4 years old already and you are proactive with regards to your SEO then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

You could start to build another domain where you own both the .co.uk and the .com and eventually plan to 301 your .co.uk to that domain, but there is no pressing requirement.

 

[neild]

Thing to do is get intouch with ICCAN first to see if anything can be done and if some thing can be done then great. If not, think of another domain name that reflects your service or products that has a great search value so if someone searches for a service or product your domain name will come up.