Protecting a '.co.uk' brand

[adds.ai]

We currently own '***.co.uk' and know of a US competitor on '***.com' who for the time-being has no intention of entering the UK market.

Just say the competitor started using part of their '.com' to cater to the UK market (e.g. .com/UK) or completely changed their model to operate solely in the UK, how could we protect our brand against such an event?

We're currently looking to UK TM our brand (the '***' part of the domain) but would this be sufficient?

 

[wb]

Is the domain a generic word (e.g. Garden.co.uk) or made up unique one (e.g. Gardone.co.uk)? Which domain was registered first, .co.uk or .com?

 

[accelerator]

Also, out of interest, do you want to keep them out of the market, or do you want to prevent them trying to acquire your domain?

If your name is non-generic, then a UK Trademark can provide some additional protection.

Rgds

 

[adds.ai]

Thanks for the responses - the domain is comprised of a couple of keywords which also make up our brand name. Our brand contains no spaces between the words.

Goal isn't to stop them coming into the market, however the fear is that if they do, their site will appear above our own when searching for our brand!

Both .co.uk and .com domains have been registered for yonks by various different people - we've probably been in business longer although they've owned their domain for longer (and they did nothing with it for some time).

 

[denchomsky]

Hi.

If you have done your SEO properly and your HTML is well structured there is no reason why their site should rank above yours in search results for your brand or chosen keywords just because they have the .com

Form what I gather you have been established in the UK longer than them so you have a head start.

 

[nicedomains]

Hi.

If you have done your SEO properly and your HTML is well structured there is no reason why their site should rank above yours in search results for your brand or chosen keywords just because they have the .com

Form what I gather you have been established in the UK longer than them so you have a head start.

Good points. Just having a site on the .com does not favor it over an older and well structured site in the eyes of SE's.

 

[Frog]

Thanks for the responses - the domain is comprised of a couple of keywords which also make up our brand name. Our brand contains no spaces between the words.

Goal isn't to stop them coming into the market, however the fear is that if they do, their site will appear above our own when searching for our brand!

Both .co.uk and .com domains have been registered for yonks by various different people - we've probably been in business longer although they've owned their domain for longer (and they did nothing with it for some time).

From the limited information, it sounds like there is very little you can do as its a generic domain.

All you can do is strengthen your position. If two peoples brands are exactly the same name, if someone does a search Google has to make a guess which they are looking for. If a high percentage of those searchers were looking for site a instead of site b, they will rank a first. And remember they have this information because they can see abandonded searches, or if you go back to the search results then find a more appropriate result.

As an extreme example, if someone types "apple" into Google, they might be looking for the computer manufacturer, or they might be looking for the illustration company on apple.co.uk. Since 99% of searchers were looking for the former,and it has a way stronger site, that one ranks.

So all you can do is build links - which you should be doing anyway.