Internet Business Daily

internet business : web trends : technology news

“iPhone” Domain Names and Google

Posted by Matthew Berman On January - 18 - 2007

**I would like to thank Tom Ferris at security-protocols.com for giving me this article to post. Everyone should check out his website because he is a security genius.

So basically Google may be doing a preemptive strike against arbitragers trying to squat on any domain names including the words iPhone. iPhone is going to make a lot of people a lot of money and Google may be stopping these people in their tracks. Although i’m sure every variation of the word iPhone was taken atleast a year ago, now everyone is getting every possible kind of variation on the word. Here’s what I mean:

googlelist.JPG

Anyways read this article from security-protocols.com and be sure to visit his site and give him credit!

Here’s the article:

So the past week Tom had been doing some research regarding domain names with the word “iPhone” in them. I just wanted to see what people were registering and what kind of sites where going up. So I wasn’t surprised to see that every variation with the word “iPhone” in them had been taken.

I am guessing that Apple (or Cisco?) may have also found this out, and has contacted Google and other search engines to have those sites deleted from their index. So back to my story, when I found out that you can change the wallpaper on the iPhone I had immediately registered themeiphone.com to add to my sister of sites which are also wallpaper specific. Last night I checked my SERPS for themeiphone.com and I was #2 for the keyword “iphone wallpapers” on Google. Below my site were a few others which were also going to be iPhone wallpaper sites. Fair enough, I have always liked competitors in this space.

So today I go to check my SERPS for themeiphone.com and it has been deleted from Google’s index! Now I know for a fact that I was not violating Google’s TOS because the site only had a landing page which says “Coming Soon!”. No doorway pages, 301 redirects to that domain, nothing. So I checked on the other sites which were going to be doing wallpapers and they have also been deleted:

Your search – site:iphonelive.org – did not match any documents.

Your search – site:themeiphone.com – did not match any documents.

Your search – site:iphonewallpapers.net – did not match any documents.

Your search – site:iphonewallpapers.com – did not match any documents.

So I guess the point of my post is that save your cash and do not register any domain names with the word “iphone” in them. Now I know people are going to say, well you shouldn’t buy domain names with a trademarked word in them. Yes this is true, but most companies dont care if all you are doing is promoting the product in a good way.

That was the full post from security-protocols.com. Thanks again Tom.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

21 Comments »

Comment by Dave Davis
2007-01-18 16:09:56

“most companies dont care if all you are doing is promoting the product in a good way.”

Ehmmm, first of all, this is Apple. They are not most companies. Second of all, I beg to differ. In the past, EVERY company I have dealt with have had problems with their TM being used in a domain name.

MySpace is a perfect example.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 16:25:17

hey dave,

you may be correct.

thanks for the comment,

matt

 
Comment by dweller
2007-01-18 18:47:21

it’s not Apple’s trademark. :)

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 19:15:01

hey dweller,

it’s not an apple trademark…yet

thanks for the comment,

matt

 
 
 
Comment by scott
2007-01-18 16:19:47

A normal search in google of iphonelive.org and themeiphone.com both returned the pages that they were supposed to. Not sure why you didn’t get them but I did. 7:19pm Eastern 1/18.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 16:28:09

hey thanks for the comment scott

 
 
Comment by Josh Highland
2007-01-18 16:21:57

I guess im going to be screwed… I own iPhoneCraze.com and YOURiphoneUNLOCKED.com

i wonder how much apple had to pay google to do that.

 
Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 16:29:28

hey josh,

thanks for the comment

matt

 
Comment by Blake Webb
2007-01-18 17:32:03

@Josh:

Cisco you mean? :)

I suspect that Google may be pre-empting the inevitable influx of squatters and reviewing the merits of these domains on an individual basis. That or the possibility that Google is trying to avoid problems from both Apple AND Cisco until the trademark dispute is resolved.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 17:49:56

hey Blake,

I 100% agree with you, preemptive strike.

Thanks for commenting,

matt

 
 
Comment by Mark
2007-01-18 17:38:17
Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 17:50:43

Mark,

This is also possible, gotta check it out over the next few days.

Thanks for comment,

Matt

 
 
Comment by Dem
2007-01-18 23:07:38

I’m fairly certain that if a company doesn’t protect its trademark (no matter how small or insignificant the infringement) it can lose the right to that trademark.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-18 23:37:13

agreed.

thanks for the comment dem

 
 
Comment by Goldwing Guy
2007-01-19 09:45:29

I think its simply google updating.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-01-19 10:53:56

Goldwing-

Yes it was Google updating, but why de-index sites with iPhone in the domain?

matt

 
 
Comment by Zoli
2007-02-27 01:49:11

Its good

 
Comment by ryan
2007-03-03 22:56:03

I just purchased the domain name http://www.discountappleiphones.com. I amsuprised it is still available.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2007-03-05 13:58:19

hey ryan,

ya thats a great domain, congrats.

thanks for posting.

matt

 
 
Comment by Rian
2007-04-12 17:15:38

damn…I figured this would happen. I guess they dont want us helping them make more money. fine. how bout ifone?

 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.



Trackback responses to this post