Cheap Trick by Competitor's website

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts about a seemingly shady linking technique that a competitor has used .
One of my websites gets a lot of traffic and (not suprisingly) places high in SERPS for its own domain--lets say my domain name is example(dot)com.

It has come to my attention that another website has created lots of links with 'example(dot)com' as the anchor text...but in reality the link goes to their own site...

I know with freedom of expression and all, i can't really, do anything...just wondering what others of you would do? --which i imagine, alas, is nothing!

 

Thats shady, the best you can do is keep building your own links and out-promote them.
I doubt if their strategy will work anyways, it would be very difficult for them to outrank you on your own domain name.
You could also try contacting them and asking them to stop, maybe they will be embarrassed that they were caught.

 

Doesn't sound nice. It can be hard not to take things like this personally. With Adwords I think things like this go on a lot with people paying for Ads to be shown when people search for competitor product names. There's not a lot you can do except potentially embarrass them as Dreamerr says.

 

true they do appear below me...but they're on the first page with me! i don't think it's a huge problem as you guys said..it just caught me by surprise

 

You should trademark your website name and then sue them for past and future losses.

 

yes you can ask them to stop this thing. if they really want to be at the top then they should choose some other way. why they are using your site name for getting links. You can tell them that you can take legal action against them.

 

I wouldn't ask them to stop -- continue to do what you've been doing, outrank them, and let them market your site as a brand name. (even if the link doesn't point to your site)

It's just silliness, really.

 

Yeh, it's a bit daft. You could leverage it and write a feature about how you have such a strong brand name that firms are using it to make their sites look better! This would work great if you had your own affiliate programme. You could post Press Releases about it. Rather than attack them, thank them - that will confuse and embarrass them no end, plus make you look really good!!

 

I would ask these guys to stop although im afraid if they would even listen and could just be a total waste of time for you. Better just go on a toe to toe competition with them

 

They have every right to use the same anchor text as yours - as long as it doesn't have your domain name in it. Just keep on doing what your doing - like you said - your outranking them.

 

If they use commenting on blogs to place those links, can't you report them to some spam filter providers to block them?

 

i thought this was a music related post I like Cheap Trick, but not Cheap Tricks I wouldn't worry about these folks as they are short lived in serps anyways.

 

I guess this leads to the following question: When and how should someone who owns a successful site trademark this name? I also believe there is a difference between a trademark and a registered trademark.

However, acquiring a registered trademark will cost money. Then, when some other site is caught using your trademark, hiring a lawyer will also be very expensive.

Otherwise, there is really nothing you can do. You could contact and appeal to the site owners where these links have been placed, but that could be a giant waste of time. Personally, I would just keeping building your own links.

Any other thought?

 

Thats what I thought. I think they would really have to be backlinking hard to get above you since you hold the domain name.

 

I would ignore them, let them waste their time, if you stop them, they may start doing something useful and give you more work to keep ahead.

 

as you guys have suggested, i'm going to basically ignore it.