Bought domains for huge event - advertising?

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devildriver wrote: »

It's not clear exactly what you are trying to do here. It sounds very much like cyber-squatting of one sort or another where you are cashing in on the popularity of the event and using a slightly misleading domain name which some people could think is an official site for the event. If this is the case legitimate advertisers won't have anything to do with it. You may be able to attract lower grade advertisers which will make the site look even more spammy.

On the other hand if you are going to create a site that adds value and is useful to visitors to the event such as providing information on accommodation and local amenities while making it ABSOLUTELY clear that your site is not affiliated with the real site - then maybe, just maybe you can make a few quid.

However that will require some serious investment of time to create quality content and you still run the risk of PASSING OFF.

Proceed with great caution.

Hi, thanks for the message.

I suppose should the event organisers take exception to the fact that I am doing this, I'll be able to prove to the event organisers that I have been researching the event for about a year already (with a personal interest)...internet history, emails etc. I genuinely had no interest nor had I even thought about the website until recently.

I have also decided that once the site is ready to go live, that I will send the link to the organisers, explain what I am trying to do and hopefully get their blessing. So basically, I plan to be 100% upfront about the whole thing. Don't want to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

I have been working away on the site but obviously haven't yet published it or anything. My home page and many other pages makes reference to the fact that it's not the real site, gives the link to the real site and indicates that it's a guide for those coming to the area for the event and that it's not a guide for the event itself.

I really genuinely want to write the guide as I lived there for a long time, know the area well and can genuinely help people. At the moment there is no website that gives everything about the place (no to do with the event itself)...accommodation, restaurants, bars, clubs, history of the place, kids activities.

My niche is to basically create a directory of sorts so that if you are coming to the event, you can attend the event (which I won't write about at all as I'll leave that to the official site) but you'll also have so much more outside of the event that you can do and see.

With a little luck, the site will get the thumbs up from the organisers and then some advertisers might want to advertise (non-event services or goods).

But the primary aim is still to create a directory specifically aimed at people coming to the event but capturing a different niche, if you know what I mean.

Still think that's cybersquatting? I know there's a risk but I think it will be worth taking...as long as I'm upfront. Worst case scenario the organisers can tell me they aren't happy with it but I can still publish my site under some other domain name.

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jonny24ie wrote: »

I heard a story on the radio yesterday about Go Daddy getting sued for use of certain web domains etc by some academy awards or something and the judge ruled in the favour of go daddy. Have a read and see if its the type of scenario you are talking about here.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/11/us-godaddy-oscars-lawsuit-idUSKCN0RB1UJ20150911

Well, I suppose that's good for Godaddy, but should the domain owners themselves live in the USA, the plaintiff could sue them. Not sure it's really applicable in my case as I am not the domain registering site. But I did use Godaddy to register my domains.

M.T.D

Domain name issues aside.

If you write a good blog with lots of interesting and informative posts about the area and the event its self your blog is likely to rank in Google.
The "better" your post/page, (by better I mean targeted to a chosen keyword group) the higher your blog pages will rank.

Although the domain name is a ranking factor it is of very much lower importance than the page/post content and on-page SEO.

From a visitors point of view having the Event Name in the domainname is indicative of the blogs information and therefore useful, but not much more than www.myblog.com/eventname/eginfopost/.

No matter how close a domain name unless the site has content it won't appear in Google anyway and on that count is a waste of money.
The exception is for misspellings and then people might end up on your blog by mistake but then the "back button" will probably get used.

tricky D

It's called brandjacking (using another trademark's brand equity to make revenue) and is very risky. The GoDaddy case is not really analagous. If the brand in question is well protected and defended, and they decide to go legal, the OP's costs are going to soar.

devildriver wrote: »

It's not clear exactly what you are trying to do here. It sounds very much like cyber-squatting of one sort or another where you are cashing in on the popularity of the event and using a slightly misleading domain name which some people could think is an official site for the event. If this is the case legitimate advertisers won't have anything to do with it. You may be able to attract lower grade advertisers which will make the site look even more spammy.

On the other hand if you are going to create a site that adds value and is useful to visitors to the event such as providing information on accommodation and local amenities while making it ABSOLUTELY clear that your site is not affiliated with the real site - then maybe, just maybe you can make a few quid.

However that will require some serious investment of time to create quality content and you still run the risk of PASSING OFF.

Proceed with great caution.

Varik

Check out fusible.com or wipo, story after story of sites getting siezed some about request being denied but the difference between winning and losing is usually slim.

Generally never ends up as a big legal battle, icaan rules get inforced and domain is transferred or not.

jmcc

Joel Deafening Bin wrote: »

I'd rather not say exactly what for as yet until I am up and running with the whole thing. Basically, the event organisers have their official Twitter as @nameofevent2018. The main official website is just www.nameofevent.com but with no year.

That could be construed as a set of bad faith registrations.

I expect a lot of traffic on these domains (millions will attend this event in the States (only occurs once a decade on average and each time attracts approx 4-5 million visitors, myself included!)). I am sure people who are on the event's Twitter will possibly copy the Twitter name into Google and my sites will pop up. I haven't even created the sites as yet...another day's work.

Definitely bad faith in that it can be shown that you are intending to profit from another's intellectual property.

I am hoping to blog and then later use the sites in order to make money from advertising...eg. Hotels, bars, retail etc. I am just not sure the best way to do this.

From bad to worse. Now you've just proven a financial intent to profit from these bad faith registrations.

Most of the people posting on this thread have little or no understanding of what constitutes cybersquatting. Most people don't.

At best, if the company is monitoring their intellectual property via domain name monitoring, it might be just a Cease and Desist letter with a request to turn over the domain names. That could escalate into a WIPO action in which the company could seek to have the domain names transferred by legal action.

Given your reference to copyright and trademarks, have you actually done a trademark search on www.uspto.gov or elsewhere?
http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

Do you understand the difference between copyright and trademarks?

Regards...jmcc

GuitarMusic

With such a vast number of visitors why not just monetise with adsense ads?

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Thanks all.

As I said previously, I am going to approach the event organisers (brand name holders) and show them my site as soon as I get it live.

If they say that they want the domain name or if they are unhappy about it, then I will just transfer the domain name to them. End of story. It's a risk I am willing to take with all the work I am putting into the website. I can always use the content of the site with another non-event related domain name, so it's not gone to waste.

I am not looking to pull the wool over anyone's eyes and I want to be upfront and transparent about things. So I will see where it leads me.

Thanks!

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jmcc wrote: »

That could be construed as a set of bad faith registrations.

Definitely bad faith in that it can be shown that you are intending to profit from another's intellectual property.

From bad to worse. Now you've just proven a financial intent to profit from these bad faith registrations.

Most of the people posting on this thread have little or no understanding of what constitutes cybersquatting. Most people don't.

At best, if the company is monitoring their intellectual property via domain name monitoring, it might be just a Cease and Desist letter with a request to turn over the domain names. That could escalate into a WIPO action in which the company could seek to have the domain names transferred by legal action.

Given your reference to copyright and trademarks, have you actually done a trademark search on www.uspto.gov or elsewhere?
http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

Do you understand the difference between copyright and trademarks?

Regards...jmcc

Thanks. But if I approach the event organisers and show them what I am doing and they then give it the thumbs up, I guess that would be ok?
What if I pointed all of the domain names to a blog?
Thanks

mneylon

Joel Deafening Bin wrote: »

Thanks. But if I approach the event organisers and show them what I am doing and they then give it the thumbs up, I guess that would be ok?

If it's a big event they are probably going to be very protective of their IP

Joel Deafening Bin wrote: »

What if I pointed all of the domain names to a blog?
Thanks

If the domain(s) use their trademarks without their permission then it can be seen as cybersquatting

As JMCC points out, you could get a cease and desist or you could end up losing the domains via a UDRP

Atomico

Joel Deafening Bin wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the message.

I suppose should the event organisers take exception to the fact that I am doing this, I'll be able to prove to the event organisers that I have been researching the event for about a year already (with a personal interest)...internet history, emails etc. I genuinely had no interest nor had I even thought about the website until recently.

I have also decided that once the site is ready to go live, that I will send the link to the organisers, explain what I am trying to do and hopefully get their blessing. So basically, I plan to be 100% upfront about the whole thing. Don't want to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

I have been working away on the site but obviously haven't yet published it or anything. My home page and many other pages makes reference to the fact that it's not the real site, gives the link to the real site and indicates that it's a guide for those coming to the area for the event and that it's not a guide for the event itself.

I really genuinely want to write the guide as I lived there for a long time, know the area well and can genuinely help people. At the moment there is no website that gives everything about the place (no to do with the event itself)...accommodation, restaurants, bars, clubs, history of the place, kids activities.

My niche is to basically create a directory of sorts so that if you are coming to the event, you can attend the event (which I won't write about at all as I'll leave that to the official site) but you'll also have so much more outside of the event that you can do and see.

With a little luck, the site will get the thumbs up from the organisers and then some advertisers might want to advertise (non-event services or goods).

But the primary aim is still to create a directory specifically aimed at people coming to the event but capturing a different niche, if you know what I mean.

Still think that's cybersquatting? I know there's a risk but I think it will be worth taking...as long as I'm upfront. Worst case scenario the organisers can tell me they aren't happy with it but I can still publish my site under some other domain name.

If you really want to create this website and you don't want people to be fooled into thinking that this is an official website launched by the organisers of the event, then why don't you register a different domain, one that doesn't mimic the official organiser's URL and social media profiles?

On the one hand you say you aren't cybersquatting, but on the other you say you are looking to benefit from all the potential traffic the domains you've registered will attract. Of course you are looking to capitalise on their traffic with a slight variation of their domain (so slight it has four numbers after the main domain), and so of course this is cybersquatting.

It is no different to that trick The Irish Times tried to pull years back when they registered groupon.ie before Groupon did. Needless to say they lost it and lost whatever investment they had put into it (even if it was only the 25 quid or so for the domain). Same goes for the guys who registered facebook.ie.

Also, what results do you get if you google the event name? My guess is you will have a handful of other results like Wikipedia and maybe some other major brands / websites. Unless you invest a fairly serious amount into content and building links to your site, you may find it difficult to rank on page 1 for your site. Also, not as many people will type 'eventname2018.com' into their browser as you might think. They will mainly google the event name or type 'eventname.com' into their browser, if they want to go to the site directly.

Then it's a catch-22 since if you do, you will attract the attention of the organisers, and you might find they take action and your efforts will have been for nought. You might be able to convince them but it could be a long shot, especially since they will see that you sought to cash in on their own efforts to build this brand / event.

I see that WebSummit2016.com is free, but if I bought it and spent lots building content and awareness of the site, I'd also expect a stern letter from Paddy Cosgrave's solicitors at some point! And rightly so.