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Domain Name Sniping By Your Competition - What Would You Do?

Have you ever had a domain name sniped? One of the agents in my office was making a change on her main website from Realtor.com to another firm so she could update it more easily. Since Realtor.com held the site they would not transfer it but agreed to release it and then she could purchase it back right away and move it to GoDaddy.com. Sounds easy - right?

It would have been very easy except a competitor had a notification of some kind so when domain names became available and before the agent could re-register her site he sniped it. After quite a while we figured out who had gotten her website, called him and asked if she could purchase it back.

His answer... "Want the website? Come work in my office!" Sure - she wants to work with a broker who would snipe her website. Her website isn't a area name or a real estate reference... It is HER NAME!!! The website is not being used - just tied up like a hostage.

Checked with our lcoal Board of Realtors and this is not a Code of Ethics violation. Somehow to me this kind of mean spirited action sure seems like an ethics issue to me....

What do YOU think?

Susan Hilton - Realtor & Sales Trainer for Century 21 Beal

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Posted by Susan Hilton Texas Aggie Real Estate College Station Bryan Texas Real Estate on 02/27/2009 11:08 PM

Comments (18)

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18 Comments on Domain Name Sniping By Your Competition - What Would You Do?

FEB

Mean spirited for sure -- but there is a lot of domain snagging like this that goes on ---- moral of the story , the domain should never have been registered to anyone else in the first place. Our 2 cents.

That is the most bizarre thing I have heard about websites. Guy must be desperate for associates and she must be a whiz.....

Wow, it takes all kinds. She must be an exceptional agent to go to that much trouble.....except, who would THINK of doing something like that!

Keep checking...I think you will find that it is against a newer ethics law that recently passed. I am fairly certain that in my ProStandards training in January, this was brought up. A broker cannot purchase a persons name if they don't employ that person. I wish I could quote the article, but off the top of my head, I can't.

FEB

Flattery will get you everywhere these days!

What a loser

Hmmmm a new low in agent behavior!

I was told a few years ago that there are programs that are being used to snag domain names when they see any kind of activity on them. Sometimes they will even tie up several that are similar, especially versions of your name. That broker must have employed software like that to be able to capture her name right as she was transfering it.

She can do the same thing the unscrupulous broker did and register with GoDaddy for first dibs on it. Then, when the competitor accidentally drops it (which he may, if he only registered it for one year and is renewing manually), she can pick it up the same way he did (by notification).

A better alternative would be to purchase a catchy domain, which she can then offer in trade to the unscrupulous broker. If she plays with the domain names long enough on GoDaddy, she'll figure out something that broker could use. Hey, is www.UnscrupulousRealEstateBroker.com taken?

How underhanded! Why would a broker who wanted her do that!

Do what Mirela Monte suggested, and put dibs on it on GoDaddy!

Susan, holding a website hostage. I have heard this among companies doing this but another person in the real estate business is very strange. I hope it all works out eventually. Maybe just ignore it and move on to another domain name. Life is too short to let this kind of thing bother one.

Susan, I would not only refuse to work for him, but I would threaten to turn him into instant blog fodder! What a creep!

Yes the agent is a TOP agent. She learned a valuable lesson and we are making sure it won't happen again. She has moved on to another doman name and changed all her marketing pieces too.

We will check with NAR and see if there are new rules our local Association missed and maybe go after him for ethics violations!

Paula - YOU ARE RIGHT! Logged into the NAR Code of Ethics and searched a while and I think I have case rulings that we can take to the board showing this is a violation. You are a jewel! we will get filing first thing Monday morning!

Not fun... When will people realise that the world is too small to burn bridges??? it is not like the site was "collegestationrealestate.com" that would make sense to grab. I guess we dont own our names anymore.

That's terrible. Hopefully she can find another name that will suit her.

BTW, I recently lost a valuable domain name: www.ForeclosuresAuthority.com

I had it on manual renew and didn't pay attention when I got the expiration notice from GoDaddy. A sharper agent got it. I had tons of advertising tied to it. What did I do? I went over the rest of my critical domain names and bought them for many years. You snooze, you lose... Lesson learnt. My bad. Next!

MAR

Hello, sorry to hear this, but its a very common issue with realtor.com setting up your domain name as part of the products they sign you up for.

The problem is that realtor.com use an affiliate to handle domain name registration. That affiliate also uses an affiliate. That affiliate, the last time we looked, didnt have an phone number listed for their customer support.

We at www.limeyboy.com have helped many real estate agents regain control of their domain names. It takes about 2-3 hours of out time, thats spread over a week to 10days.

We dont agree with the methodology of to your associate. You dont want realtor.com to "release it", you want them, via their affiliates, to give you access to the control panel at the current registra.

When you are logged in there, you can set yourself up as the admistrative/techical contact, unlock the domain to make it available to transfer, then sign up with your preferred registra and set up the transfer to them.

The whole process takes about a week, BUT importantly you retain control of the domain throughout. By letting it go unclaimed, it will be vulnerable to being poached from other people.

Nick Love

www.limeyboy.com

cheap domains

MAR

Susan,

The agent told me about it. I told her to tell him that KARMA BITES BIG TIME!

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