Sole trader multiple websites

Speculator

Hi,

I am planning on setting up as a sole trader and will have multiple websites both .ie domains and .com

The sole trading business will not be in my name so I will register this with cro.ie. For example: ABC Entertainment

Each web site domain will have a different name. For example yellowbricks.ie, golfbags.com etc

I intend putting ABC Entertainment at the footer on all websites.

Are there any issues in the above theory and if so what should I be aware of?

The Apprentice

Google footprint..

Act the **** on one of those sites and it might be your downfall.. As a competitor i could burn you in under 15 mins..

Other than that i cant think of much.

Speculator

The Apprentice wrote: »

Google footprint..

Act the **** on one of those sites and it might be your downfall.. As a competitor i could burn you in under 15 mins..

Other than that i cant think of much.

Unsure what you mean my Google footprint, act the **** on one of the websites and as a competitor you could burn me in under 15 mins. Please explain?

Axwell

Speculator wrote: »

Hi,

I am planning on setting up as a sole trader and will have multiple websites both .ie domains and .com

The sole trading business will not be in my name so I will register this with cro.ie. For example: ABC Entertainment

Each web site domain will have a different name. For example yellowbricks.ie, golfbags.com etc

I intend putting ABC Entertainment at the footer on all websites.

Are there any issues in the above theory and if so what should I be aware of?

So you are putting it in the footer just to say basically that yellowbricks.ie is owned by ABC Entertainment? No there is no problem with doing that.

However for you to register the other domains if they are .ie then you will have to show some attachment to those domains and if the main business ABC Entertainment isnt related then you wouldnt get them and would more than likely have to register and get an RBN for the other .ie domains.

I think what the apprentice is trying to suggest is that basically if you have that name at the bottom of the site then Google will pick up on it. So if I did a search for ABC Entertainment I would see you are involved in the other sites. If for whatever reason someone wasnt happy with your service they would easily see you are involved in others, as would a competitor and it might harm all of your businesses/sites as a whole.

Speculator

If I decide not to add "ABC Entertainment" at the end of the websites, are there any legal issues?

The Apprentice

Yes axwell you pretty much hit the nail on the head..

From A competitors point of view, i could steal your lifes work with little investment, just a little more than what your paying for seo dependant on the sites etc.
Also if you dont mind telling the world what finger you have in what pies ??

The leading competitor could easily get your adsense account banned and pretty much other monotization methods if they saw fit, which would in fact pretty much kill your revenue stream ..
Also dependant on what you do with your sites, i know of a story which reminded me of this, a particular guy was just outgunned by a competitor financially so what he did was just ruin one of his other sites..

In a knock on effect google deindexed/slapped everyone of his sites on that particular vps or dedicated package on the hosting server.. Pretty much leaving him down a bad stream without a paddle, It dont really matter that he didnt know much about it but only the fact that he got slapped to page 2 and 3 which pretty much devasted his business..

Also if your sites contain subsequent copied content and is not up to scratch, u could go into google webmaster tools, report your site and get you a nice little manual review of your sites. Although if you have done nothing wrong your fine but google are notorious for banning people for all sorts of reasons with little/vague explanations.

I recently had a guy ask me could i slap on of his leading competitiors with a well known method..

So you see there are pros and cons to this, pros are pretty much bragging rights on what high profile sites you own/manage but in my honest opinion the above cons far outweigh them..
U can see that fancy income go flutter in a hearbeat.. :P

Cheers mate, best of luck with whatever choice u make keep us posted !!

The Apprentice

Sorry.. that post was a rant ^ ?? lol

The answer to the question is NO:
There is no direct legal issues to doing this oh and ive another con, i recently go 2 dmca takedown requests on two different sites i own which are two copyrighted brands. http://www.studiobarbero.com
This may be in fact a legal entity if u did infact have copyrighted brands in the domain names ..
But as far as abc entertainment its a definite NO
So in fact these guys could have a field day on abc appy :D:D

Speculator

Thanks for all your advice.

I will be setting up as a sole trader, the name will not relate to the domain names but the business activity of the sole trader will. So for example the Name of the Sole trader will be Green Leaf and the business activity will be marketing.

I have numerous websites with very generic names such as CompareEvents.ie, CompareUtilities.ie. These sites will generate revenue from providers advertising a slot on the website.

I will not mention Green Leaf on any of the websites. Can anyone see any issues with the above?


Secondly I purchased the .ie domain names as an educational, free resource websites, now that I wish to change the website activities will I have to get in touch with the domain registry and inform them that the purpose of these sites have changed?

And if they not happy with my connection to these sites can they take them away from me?

How would the domain registry company know that these .ie domains are being used for profit rather than free resource sites? i.e. could I keep this quiet?

The Apprentice

Na if the purpose of the sole trader is to legitamely show the taxman that this is your business and these are the websites under the said name "green leaf" then that is fine.. There is no legal issues at all.. Just dont mention it on the websites and ure good.


And on the second topic i dont really know of this, but realistically if these domains are "educational and free" getting revenue to cover costs of A dedicated server :P (rather large one) is one thing and domain costs etc but to now change the specifics of a domain to a profit machine is certainly deceptive.. They would have to prove without a shadow of uncertainty that u intended to do this but it is not something i can categorically say for certain on .ie domains because of the crappy legalities etc.
If this was a .com or any other domain name u purchased and u can do what u want with it. I know a someone that runs some .edu and .gov sites for profit for a long long time with no repercusions at all..
Its very very hard to prove but its ireland my friend remember murphys law before proceeding.

condra

I too would be inclined to be covert with multiple websites. I imagine Google doesn't like too many non related websites linking to each other.