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Having almost same domain name as competition?

by odinson
6 replies
Hey warriors, so I recently (about 2 weeks ago) decided to make my own site for local businesses (Dentists). Well, I decided to use a highly competitive keyword for a big city (I like playing life in legendary mode I guess?). Anyway, I got to rank it on the 1st page on Google after 2 weeks.

The problem is that, let's say my keywords are something like "Dentists in Bogota" (it's not, but just setting the example), and my site is dentistsinbogota(dot)com (again, that's not even a real website). And my competition's name is something like dentistsinbogota(dot)co .

Ok, so it's a high competitive keyword (around 5k searches a month) and my competition has almost the exact name as my website, and also, my competition some sort of a seo company that has had that website for over 2 years now (I'm actually 1 place behind me competition in Google lol, it's like he is number 3 in the first page and I'm number 4).

So, I'm planning on renting my website to some dentist around the area, do you think there will be a problem with my competition since we have the same keywords and basically the same domain name?

I hope you can help me guys
#competition #domain
  • Profile picture of the author Voasi
    My answer is based on non-branding related marketing activities and solely on your ability to rank a website in search engines...

    No. You shouldn't be worried. If they're finding you in the search engines, then it doesn't matter if the domain is closely related or not.
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  • Profile picture of the author amcg
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author odinson
      Originally Posted by amcg View Post

      I think you have to accept that the Internet, now universally accessible, pretty much has multiples of everything. I know this because my startup, Human Software, is not the only company named Human by any stretch - just Google search to see what I mean.

      You need to think about branding when starting out. If you're comfortable with your name and happy to defend/market it, choose what you want. If not, you're going to have to look at alternatives.

      In your case, I wouldn't be overly descriptive either - I've made that mistake before.
      So that means I can actually have issues for having almost the same name as my competition? Is there something ilegal about it? I really want to know in this moment because I'm thinking in offering my services probably today, but just want to make sure there won't be any problem at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author Moxil
    Careful if that is the actual company's name and if it's trademarked, etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author odinson
      Originally Posted by Moxil View Post

      Careful if that is the actual company's name and if it's trademarked, etc.
      It's not the actual company name, nor it's trademarked I think. The company name description is something like "publicity in search engines" or "#1 positioning in Google", but the webpage seems to be just marketing for the business owner.
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  • Profile picture of the author deu12000
    I had a local company saying that the site I built was stealing their business name. They were mad because my site outranked theirs. The names were similar but it was a generic term and not the same company name. I told them I was sorry the domain was similar but it was a generic term and unless they were putting an offer on the table they couldn't have the site.

    On a related note I started my main company website in 2004. The first few months I was getting tons of strange emails. Finally I figured out there was a website with the same domain as mine but an S on the end that was a fetish site. I ended up forwarding the emails to the company and letting them know their contact email was missing the S. They were thankful. My company site is still the same and I haven't gotten an accidental email in years. There site is also still the same.
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    • Profile picture of the author odinson
      Originally Posted by deu12000 View Post

      I had a local company saying that the site I built was stealing their business name. They were mad because my site outranked theirs. The names were similar but it was a generic term and not the same company name. I told them I was sorry the domain was similar but it was a generic term and unless they were putting an offer on the table they couldn't have the site.

      On a related note I started my main company website in 2004. The first few months I was getting tons of strange emails. Finally I figured out there was a website with the same domain as mine but an S on the end that was a fetish site. I ended up forwarding the emails to the company and letting them know their contact email was missing the S. They were thankful. My company site is still the same and I haven't gotten an accidental email in years. There site is also still the same.

      Hey man, I sent you a PM I hope you can help me out
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