Can you use a brand name or trademark inside your domain name such as google-help.com or ebay-buying.com or could Google or eBay shut you down?

It’s best to avoid using trademarks in a domain name - that’s the purpose of trademarks - to protect the use of the name. There are valid uses but even having a valid use can land you with a lawsuit. It’s up to you whether you whether you want to risk it.

Example: Perfume Bay eventually lost their lawsuit (sued by eBay) and are renaming their business to BeautyEncounter. Perfume Bay made a name for themselves via this escapade (unfortunately under their old name) and were featured in Inc magazine, Entrepeneur magazine and numerous online blogs and news stories.

You can read the whole story at MakeNoScents where the owners of PerfumeBay finally (in 2007) decided to start blogging the lawsuit initiated by eBay in 2004.
The blog is at http://www.makesnoscents.com/

Apparently eBay sued AutoBay, RentBay and even CoinBay.

If you choose a domain which is designed to confuse or mislead because of a trademark in the name, at the very least expect some attention from the trademark owner. At least be prepared to fight or give in when the lawsuit arrives! And if you use or mis-use a trademark which is actively pursued by it’s owner (eg eBay, Apple, iTunes, Google, etc) then anticipate the letter sooner rather than later!

Assuming you’ve spent time and money SEOing a decent engine position for your site, you’ll kick yourself if you have to throw it away.

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AOF SEO Site Verifier plugin version 1.3 is released

AOF SEO Site Verifier Wordpress plugin allows you to quickly and easily verify your Wordpress blog with Google, Yahoo and MSN Webmaster tools.

Download version 1.3 of AOF SEO Site Verifier here: AOF SEO Site Verify version 1.3

AOF SEO Site Verifier documentation and installation instructions are here.

Version 1.3 auto-detects Wordpress version and uses the appropriate functions to auto-detect the front page. Version 1.1 did not detect the front page on some blogs where the front page was set manually.

AOF SEO Site Verifier Wordpress plugin allows you to quickly and easily verify your Wordpress blog with Google, Yahoo and MSN Webmaster tools.

Download version 1.1 of AOF SEO Site Verifier here: AOF SEO Site Verify version 1.1

AOF SEO Site Verifier documentation and installation instructions are here.

One of the quickest ways to kill your search ranking (page rank) with Google is to have duplicate content posted at two domains.  For example, exactly the same pages posted at www.site1.com and www.site2.com.  Unfortunately Google treats subdomains as separate domains - so if www.site1.com and flop.site1.com have the same content they are treated by Google as duplicate content on two domains.  Goodbye pagerank and goodbye search visitors.  And Google does not normally treat www. as a special subdomain.  So again, content at www.site1.com and site1.com appear to Google as separate domains and hence can create the duplicate content rank killer.

The problem is easy to fix but fix it before it’s a problem!!  You can wait weeks for Google to re-index to the point where your search ranking returns.  On a cash earning site which relies on search visitors that’s instant death and there is nothing you can do but wait.

0) Decide!

No matter which tools you use, the single most important thing to do first is to decide whether you want “www.” or not.  Then don’t change it.  Trust me, it hurts.

1) Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster tools allow you to select whether www.site1.com or site1.com appears in it’s index.  Again, never ever change this once it’s set - this can cause Google to double index as it re-indexes your site, hence creating the duplicate content problem!

2) 301 redirects

There are numerous tools and scripts (including WordPress plugins) which you can use to perform a 301 redirect from the prefix you don’t want to the prefix you do want.  Doing this ensures that Google knows which is the permanent page and therefore which one to include in it’s index.

3) Use your host

Both 1&1 and dreamhost allow you to set the 301 redirect automatically.  Dreamhost’s redirect control panel options are mind-numbingly easy to use:

In summary, pick one and stay with it.  As you grow incoming links, you also want them coming in to the correct prefix.  So pick early, fix the problem before it happens and enjoy the income without that horrible sinking feeling that you screwed your pagerank.