Strategy for TLD assholes
 

What do you guys do when a person joins your affiliate program and buys yourdomain.net and begins competing with search rank in Google with your actual site? Do you drop the affiliate?

Do you have to buy your brand name with every TLD just to stay sane?

Sucks.

z

Accept the traffic and the joins and stop being a dipshit. If, with the help of webmasters, you can own the top 10 results for some phrases that make money... why fuck with that? If they are promoting you, then who cares.

If your domain is registered first, you don't need to worry.

I just have a problem paying people for traffic they don't have originally as webmasters. Am I the only one who considers this 'cheating'?

:2 cents:

Yes.
I would hope so.

Yes I know, but it just means you have to buy all the TLDs, which these days there are plenty.

Its traffic you would not have had. This is the problem in your thinking. This is about income. Not ego.

should have spent $8.95 then...

Yeah, don't fuck with your affiliates making you money unless you clearly state it in your TOS.. There are a few other good uses for other TLDs of the same name paysite that makes money other than from SEs.. :2 cents:

If you didn't want it to be a problem, you should have bought them for cheap..

What do your program terms and conditions say on the subject ?

Some programs have specific keywords that cannot be bid for or domains that cannot be used eg: brand name in the domain. What does your T&C say ? If there's no mention of it then I'd say unless you have a trademark or want to undertake a UDRP action there's not much to complain about, at least he's sending you traffic and not competing with you or using the domain in bad faith.

Most of those "Do not bid" keywords that are in the TOS of other programs are just talking about paid bidding on keywords. That's different than what the OP is saying since the results are organic.

If it's not clearly stated in the TOS for affiliates to not use NAME.TLD, then too bad.

Fair enough. I'll make sure its in the TOS.

You expect this decision will have a positive impact on traffic, revenue and webmaster relations?

Upside to you... $0.00
Possible downside... X...?

Every decision you make as a business owner, has either positive or negative financial consequences. You have not began to consider that and the very premise "i'm paying for traffic i shouldn't have to" is flawed... unless you own the top 10 results for that phrase. Other people can or will if you don't allow affiliates to. At least they are sending traffic to you. Very few people understand the significance of small decisions and their wider impact. Particularly when the decisions are irrational and emotional based.

I will grant you its better than a torrent site's links, but there is no upside to me competing with affiliates who didn't have relevant traffic in the first place.

agreed..

How do you think that will play out? My guess is he will just put up links to a different sponsor...:1orglaugh

which sounds like lose-lose to me... :2 cents:

Really?
:Oh crap

Surfers searching for your site and clicking the 3rd result instead of the first - with both pointing to you, is not "relevant traffic"?

I meant to say "either positive or negative impact"

You are choosing the latter.

Possibly the most rational response yet. You're right, it doesn't play out well for either party. I know it doesn't help me with your scenario, but I also don't think this person would make many sales to other sites.

Just an question, is the OP part of Generation Y ? Would explain the reasoning.

In an ideal world, his links would just not be there and there would be links to my social media pages, etc. I don't think we will see eye to eye on this one but I do appreciate your input... which is why I posted the question in the first place, for input.

Then find the affiliate promoting you with your name.TLD. Then find out of they are converting better than your main site/tour. If so, leave it alone. If not, work with them to make a better converting site.

For domains intended for resale I only buy .com. Domains I develop I usually buy .com, .net, .org, .info .biz and .us. If serious development I would grab at least that handful of extensions as a small cost of doing business. If you feel someone bringing you sales with an alternate extension of your domain is cheating then write it in your terms. :2 cents:

I like that rationality if the case is that they are converting better than myself. But if it went the other way, which I'd bank on being the case, then it would be counter-productive for me to help them.

Perhaps, for the purpose of the debate, it should be pointed out that I pay 70% revshare to affiliates.

yes, you are the only one since this is how it's been done from the beginning.

Absolutely! Hindsight is 20/20.

No matter what you pay affiliates, listen to the people who are answering you. This situation has been seen a bunch of times on this board. We have seen how other folks have handled it and the repercussions of their various decisions.

Imho, your bets bet is to work with your affiliates. It is your brand name that is up there and not your competitore. The more stuff on page one that points to your site, either directly or indirectly, the better off you are.

Don't be like Alpha Sky. please.

.

:2 cents: :2 cents:

Be happy its not a tube/torrent/filehost site

if he is using the domain to send you sale you OTHERWISE would not have had then STFu and enjoy the sales....

Dont be like these other aff programs that flip flop and tell you sureeeeeeeee its ok (Cough Cough ...Fleshlight) and let you send em sales only to 2 years later try to steal the doamin back...

Idiots

Yea def would stay away from your program!! Just my two cents..

As people said, 1 extra spot torrent sites and warez forums can't claim.

If freeones.com/zishy/ (or whatever) was #2, would you ban them? If not, why not? They are banking on your name just the same.

Only thing we ask of our affiliates is no keyword bidding .. IE our brand vimax

do not bid for keyword "vimax" other variations of it is fine just not the exact keyword and most comply :)

as for domains ranking #2 ...Good for them :) they worked hard.

Normally I ask a program if they care if I use a similar domain or one that has their name in it and most don't. In some of those cases I have had some great success. A few years back when Brooke Sky was still active I had a blog dedicated to her that was #1 on google for the term Brooke Skye for about a year. I outranked her actual site. The owners of the site never said anything but thanks for the traffic and here's a check.

Let me tell you about a guy named Steve. Steve had an affiliate program and he had people doing this to him. His program was wildly popular. He made a lot of money. The top results for one of his main girls liked like this :

Her name. In
Her name. Net
Her name. Com
Her name. Affiliate. Com
Her name. Biz
Her name. Affiliate. Com
Her name. Us
Her name. Affiliate. Com
Tube. Com /her stolen video

And this meant Steve made money on her name. He was protected in a way by those affiliates.

One day Steve had this wild idea. What if he forced the affiliates with his models name in the TLD to give him the names and he redirected to his. Com? He'd make a lot of money right? Yes. He did for a year. Now the results for this model are :

Tube. Com /her stolen video
Tube. Com /her stolen video
Tube. Com /her stolen video
Her name. Com
Tube. Com /her stolen video
Tube. Com /her stolen video
Tube. Com /her stolen video
Tube. Com /her stolen video

And now everyone sees that they don't need a membership because stolen videos make up the top results. Now he makes nothing compared to what he used to make. Those affiliates that were protecting his top ten results so he always got a piece of the pie aren't there anymore.

Think of it as having a piece of somebody else's work and not them stealing. Because the reality is they can't just buy the alternate TLD and be #2. They have to work to beat the tubes. For your sake. Also, if not tubes, if you don't have video, file lockers and torrents of your entire site rips.

Nice work, you wrote that at the speed of light.

Do you think yourdomainname.net is ranked #2 automatically?

Getting that .net to rank above all other entries takes considerable effort. Be thankful the person making that effort is sending you sales. Had you bought the .net and redirected it to the .com it would not e ranked #2 and the site that would be ranked may not have sent sales to you at all.

You can't bring your ego with you to the office.

:2 cents::2 cents:

Ok you all convinced me its probably best to not take a harsh stance against the affiliate. I'll let him ride. The main reason being that it is better than a tube/torrent site. Eff that shit.

:thumbsup

If it's a torrent site, you could take it legally and have the affiliate forfeit their earnings for other reasons. :winkwink:

If your terms don't state you don't accept this type or promotion then it's your problem.

If you do amend your terms then you should continue to work with those affiliates who signed up before you did this.

Personally as an affiliate I am sick of sponsors changing their terms to suit with regards to this, if they screw me over I simply change the promo content and point to a similar sponsor that way they loose both traffic and sales yet still have the same problem.

Search traffic does not belong to you, it's anyones for the taking.

Try improving your own seo.

:thumbsup

Be happy that he sent you all the traffic. What would happen if he would sent the whole traffic to your competition?

you are also over looking the fact that the keyword you are looking at isn't the only keyword he ranks for... it's quite likely he ranks for dozens of different keywords for which your site isn't even on page 1... :2 cents:

Yes. You sound like a fucking retard.

+1

Half of something is better than all of nothing.