Combatting cybersquatting with Per Per Click

I've been posting recently on the subject of cybersquatting and what you can proactively do about them (assess their impact , create a company domain name process and engage in some Search Engine Optimisation to gain the upper hand).

In this final posting I'm going to suggest an approach to use when all this activity has been exhausted... something that really you should only consider if the cybersquatters are using a domain that is affecting your brand and that has gained a position above your URL in search engine results on your key brand terms.

Pay-Per-click (PPC) activity is a great way to build traffic to your site (and generate online revenue, if that's your business model).
Firstly I should state that engaging in Pay Per Click adverting (PPC) in search engines has no effect on SEO efforts. However it can also be use used to detract visitors away from your competition and also therefore cybersquatters. 

This is not an entirely guaranteed way of distracting users and a lot of search engine users automatically (subconsciously) screen out the adverts in search results in their mind (e.g. those across the top and down the right hand side in Google, etc. are not even seen by the users)  and you should also work to improve your organic site rankings via a proper SEO approach.

Note:
Obviously on no account would I recommend or even suggest paying to advertise on the squatted site, it just encourages this sort of activity. In fact some of these sort of sites even make some of their money by having PPC links in them as extensions of the search engine advertising mechanism. You should therefore  ensure that your PPC campaign doesn't use this extended network of advertising and is restricted just to the main search engine you want to target.

Creating a company domain name process

I've been blogging a fair bit recently about cybersquatting and how you can deal with it once it has happened.

However, prevention is always better than cure. So its always worth considering what you can do to ensure your exposure to future cybersquatting activity is minimised.

The best advice I can give on this subject is to create a domain naming process for your organisation. This doesn't have to be complex, but it really should be done if you want to reduce the effect of this nefarious activity.

A basic process is something like this:

1. Conduct a domain name review within your organisation. This means gaining an understanding of all current and future project/brand names you are likely to be using.
2. Prioritise this list of brands according to business & brand impact and their availability.
3. Agree where your cut-off point is . In other words... recognise where the cost of buying and maintaining domain becomes greater than the impact a cybersquatter would have if it got hold of one of them.
4. Make sure there is one individual (ideally a role not a person, as people move on) responsible within your organisation for the upkeep of this list, domain registration authorisation and liaison with your domain naming company.
5. Register the domains that are available (or set up a plan of action to get those back that are possible)
6. Agree a process internally for reviewing domain names going forward. New projects and initiatives come along all the time and its easy to assume that because its done once that you are not susceptible to the same thing happening in the future.

Cybersquatting - Using SEO to gain the upper hand

Imagine the situation.... a cybersquatted domain appears in the Seach Engine Results Pages (SERP's) for your brand, but below your own site... which hopefully appears near the top.

Its not just annoying though, its still potentially damaging your brand and quite possibly making the cyber squatter money. This is because most cyber quatters tend to have affiliate links in their sites off to similar / competitive products & brands and therefore make commission from click-through sales. If the squatter can hold onto the domain for a while and even push their site up the rankings, they can potentially make quite a lot!

However, because Google and other search engines change their indexing algorithm all the time, there is no guarantee that your URL will stay above that of the squatters for any length of time. Also... there is also a very real possibility that if this person (or company) has gone as far as squatting on your domain, then they won't be restricted to entirely ethical means to improve their rankings.

As a quick explanation of what is ethical (also known as 'white hat') and unethical (AKA 'black hat') SEO activity, take a look at the diagram below:

Q: So what can you do about this?

A: Well its always easier to take preventative SEO action than trying to remedy the situation later on (and when the damage is done). This means devising an SEO plan as early as you can and setting up some above-board organic search optimisation activity. This should help your URL continue to claim its rightful place above cyber squatters.

Cyber Squatting - Assess the brand impact

Following up on my recent posting about cyber squatting, I though I would cover what this means from a brand's perspective. So, for the purposes of this posts let's assume you have a domain registered by a unwanted squatter with a name that resembles your brand... what is the impact of this?

Well, this really depends upon several things:

1. How close to your brand is the domain that is registered?
If it uses the exact name (and correct spelling) then there's obviously a strong chance its your organisation that has been targeted. If it is a common top level domain (TLD), then expect that many users will type this URL into their browser, an action known as "domain dipping". If then fair to assume some disappointment with your own brand if they don't find your site.

2. What does this domain offer?
Is there an actual website there, if so what does it say or do? Are they attempting to pass themselves off as your brand? Do they sell products, especially competitive ones (or even your own) if they have an eCommerce or affiliate setup?
Note:
A site that pretends to be yours is an obvious phishing scam candidate and the negative publicity and reputational risk could be huge! Even if this isn't a phishing attempt, are you really happy for someone to make money from your brand without your consent and without your quality safeguards?
(No, I didn't think so)

3. Are they promoting the domain?
If they are trying, through fair means or foul, to promote the site... then these efforts could conflict with your own marketing and PR activity. Check with you aligned online marketing agency (or even just type in "link[site URL]" into Google to see who's linking to this site).
Oh and don't get me started on what this means for your SEO efforts...

My main advice on this matter is if you are in any doubt as to your legal postion on this.... consult your lawyers. You may have a clear case of misrepresentation or other avenues to claim back this domain (or at least stop it doing what it is doing). But regardless, make sure you fully understand and communicate the impact that that the cyber squatter is having on your brand.

Cyber squatting - digital brandjacking

I’ve previously briefly covered the topic of Cybersquatting in a posting on brand jacking back in October, but thought that the topic deserved more thought and detail.

Cybersquatting, also known as domain squatting, is when someone deliberately registers a domain name that is relevant to your brand (product, service, organisation or even person). They do it in a deliberate act to either deny you of it, to make money from your brand equity, or with the intention of selling (read: ransoming it) it back to you.

The actual issue of whether this activity is actually illegal depends upon your country of residence, as it is a federal law in the USA to do this under the American Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act

However most countries have no legislation to cover this and therefore they have to resolve the issue through the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP),This is an international process set up by ICANN, however the chances of getting a name back varies from situation to situation and is more tricky if your cybersquatter resides in another country, especially places such as China and Russia.

So what can you do about it?
Well I hope to be covering that subject in subsequent posts...