My First Big Mistake
I joined WA a short week ago and I got started with the lessons right away and have been doing that up until today. I got so far as to registering my first domain name and was getting real excited about the future. But I unfortunately I made a big mistake: my domain name contains a trademarked word from a big company. My domain name i chose was: crocsforboys.com.
Silly me, I never thought about it until I was reading the affiliate program rules at Crocs.com. Suddenly I saw that they forbid to use their trademark for traffic generation and then it dawned on me; ofcourse I shouldn't use a trademarked words as keywords let lone in my domain name. After that realization I tried to gather further information about when you can and when you can't use a trademarked word. It's a bit of a vague area but so far as my understanding is that using a trademarked word in your domain name is a no go. Using trademarked words in blogs shouldn't get you in trouble but using them as keywords on the other hand is still very sketchy; try to avoid using them unless you receive permission from the trademark holder.
Now I'm left with one thing to do, removing my domain. Fortunately I came quite soon to this discovery instead of weeks after creating my website or worse; getting sued by a Crocs.com which trademark I used.
I hope with this blog I can inform newcomers to this site that it's best to avoid using trademarks in your domain and keywords. As for removing my website, I will do at the end of this day so people who are interested can check my site out. My motto for today is: Learn from your mistakes or learn from other people's mistakes.
~Jasper van Schie~
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A good reminder Jasper, it can always pay's to read the terms of service, before we proceed when it comes to trademarks.
If we want to track down that path we need to have a strategy in place based on outcomes if we want to push the envelope,
Nothing lost, I like your catch cry "if the Croc fits " very creative.
I see that you can purchase crocs on Amazon so there should be affiliate potential there, may just take a rejig, perhaps including similar footwear into the mix.
Have you thought of contacting Crocs, regarding the potential possibilities of promotion?
Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Hai Alex,
I wanted to but then I read their rules about use of their trademark.
I am going to make a new website, adjust some pages of my old website so that everything is trademark free and then I will let Crocs inpect my new website. Hopefully I can become their affiliate partner.
Sorry to hear of your error Jasper but well done for letting others know. Trademarks are a no-no but there are other things you can use and I hope you get it sorted soon.
For what it's worth, I've made loads of mistakes in this business too but learning from them is how we progress and go further. And there are so many people here to help you.
I made the mistake of not choosing a responsive theme in the beginning so had to correct that later - I could do it but it took me a while to readjust things on my site.
Great attitude you have to it though.
All the best.
Gail
Thank you for your nice words Gail. We live and learn and I'm already thinking about creating a new website. Moving on...
Best wishes!
Jasper
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You don’t need to remove your whole website though, you can buy another domain name (without trademark) and move it. I’m not very clever and it’s getting late here but I think you could come up with another name that would work.
Thank you for sharing.
I thought about that too Heidi and I think I will do that. Thank you for your idea.