An interesting email

[INFORG]

Just to set the background, I registered a generic linked domain (hyphenated .com) that a company once used for keyword placement and redirected to their site.

The search engines still have the site indexed and the title of the indexed/cached page contains their company name - thus when you search for their company, my domain is first in the list. The actual page I have it going to does not contain their company term.


EMAIL:

Your company is grabbing my searches for my company domain
name. www.XXXXXXcorp.com. there is some intereferences from your company with the XXXXX corp website. Why is this happening and it needs to be corrected asap. Your compnay should not be directing searches for XXXXX to your website.

___________________________


My response was not very nice:

Ms. XXXX,

I do not have any control over how a search engine indexes pages or displays results. Perhaps you used to own this domain or used it to advertise your site and the search engine has it indexed from prior to the time I acquired it. I do not have any reference to your site or company on my generic domain name www.XXXX-XXXX.com as you can plainly see and I am not directing anyone to anyplace.

Your statements above implying that I am doing something wrong and interfering with your business could result in legal action. I would recommend you choose your words more carefully.

I do not particularly like the fact that my domain name has any reference to your site in the search engines either. If you want to resolve the matter quickly, I would consider an offer for the domain in question. Otherwise, you should contact all the search engines and have them resolve the issue for you.

____________________________________

Was I too harsh? I probably would have been nicer but it gets a lot of traffic and I really don't care if they buy it or not.

[DNQuest.com]

The onyl part I would have left out is the "I would consider an offer for the domain in question" part. Since it was your first reply, it could be construed as bad faith. Without the knowledge of the domain or the company who contacted you, it is difficult to give good advice.

It is good practive never to put in a "I'll sell for the right price" in your first or even second correspondance to a C+D (or perceived C+D), Let the person suggest it or at least open that option.

Just my opinion...

[INFORG]

Thanks DNQuest, the domain in question is completely generic and not anywhere in their business name at all - no risk in offering for sale - not a chance they could prevail.

To give an analogy, it would be like JoesCarsCorp.com who used to own the domain import-automobile.com for keyword placement and let it drop. They would have no legitimate claim to it.

I wouldn't normally open up the negotiations either, but I feel confident I am perfectly safe on this one.

[DNQuest.com]

I take nothing for granted, remember "windows" is a registered TM.

[jberryhill]

"Was I too harsh? "

I don't think so. The person who wrote to you clearly has no idea how search engines work.

I might have pointed out that, probably within a few weeks, the absence of any reference to his company on the page in question will automagically cause the search engines to stop returning the page in connection with that keyword.