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Even if the two words were generic to begin with, if someone put them together in a unique way, then went to the trouble to build a successful website and brand name, then it wouldn’t be appropriate to register a very similar domain name.
“Pretty” and “Gambler” are both generic words, but once someone builds a website, generates significant traffic to that website, people recognize the site and type the domain name in to get to the site, then it’s effectively trademarked. So registering “prettygamblers.com” probably wouldn’t be a good think to do if someone had already worked hard at branding “prettygambler.com”.
The defining question in these kinds of issues is whether or not you might create confusion in the marketplace.
I think there are going to be different opinions on this – I view it as unethical like Randy, especially if it is a branded site that gets a lot of type-in traffic.
Personally I would be quite upset and talking to a lawyer. I don’t know how that situation would play out legally.
I would have to say it’s unethical, but I did it unknowingly a while back :omg:
Is the other site well-branded and obviously being kept up to date? I wouldn’t think it’s unethical unless you were taking traffic from their site.
EyesCoffee wrote:I wouldn’t think it’s unethical unless you were taking traffic from their site.I agree with that. There are so many variations that someone may create a domain name for keywords sake and not necessarily to steal someone’s traffic. But if the domain name you are looking to acquire is a completely unique name, whereas, it’s name is the actual keyword, then hell no, highly unethical IMHO.
FIRST and foremost – IF you have previous knowledge of the other website then YES I would consider it unethical to register the similar name. Moreover Id say youre not very creative in that it wouldnt be very original.
With that said this is done ALL the time – I have had it done to me half a dozen times or more. At the start of this year I registered a domain with an s and later found out the non s name was already in use. Example slotsfreak slotfreak – I had grabbed the former thinking slots sounds better than slot
did I feel guilty – yes, but hell by the time I found out I already had the site designed and up.Most instances of this are minor and most coexist in a friendly – possibly unknowing manner. However, its good to do some research prior to registering a domain name – you alway want to take the time to register the dash versions and possibly the .net version as well.
Randy said it best with his remarks – would it create any possible confusion in the marketplace – if the answer to that question is yes then you should almost always stay away.
All good points; thanks guys.
Before I wrote my post, I had doubts as to whether it would be a good idea to buy this particular domain. It seemed like a risky thing to do, and most everyone here confirmed what I was thinking.
arkyt wrote:FIRST and foremost – IF you have previous knowledge of the other website then YES I would consider it unethical to register the similar name. Moreover Id say youre not very creative in that it wouldnt be very original. I agree. And I would just like to make clear, for the record, that this is not what I was doing. I was brainstorming domain ideas with the godaddy website. When I find an available domain that I like, I check to see if similar domains have been registered. In this case, the domain with the “s” at the end was registered. So, I went to that site to see what it was like. I could tell almost immediately who owned it.If it’s done by accident, that’s understandable. But I agree, if possible you should try to avoid registering a similar domain.
Thanks again everyone.
Dave
