A Manufacturer's Brand Inside Your Domain

The domain that seemed obvious

A dealer or installer registers a domain made of the manufacturer's brand and the town. It matches what customers type, and it looks official.

Over the years it goes on the website, the email addresses, the vans, the invoices and the sign.

Then something changes. The business adds a second brand, the dealer agreement is renewed with a new clause, or a letter arrives from the manufacturer's lawyers asking for the domain.

The address the business has built its name on turns out to depend on someone else's decision.

Who owns the name in the address

Registering a domain gives you the use of an address. It gives you no rights in the name inside it.

The manufacturer's brand is its trademark. Trademark owners can bring complaints through the dispute processes for .ca and .com domains, and ask for a domain to be transferred to them.

Those processes ask, broadly, whether the domain is confusingly similar to the mark and whether it was taken in bad faith. Outcomes for genuine dealers vary, but the expensive part is having to argue at all.

A brand-name domain can also lead customers to think they are on the manufacturer's own site, which is exactly the kind of confusion trademark rights exist to prevent.

None of this is legal advice: your own dealer agreement, read by a lawyer, says where you stand.

What the dealer agreement may say

• No brand names in domains or business names without written permission.
• Transfer on request, including when the agreement ends.
• Approved logos only, used as the brand's guidelines require.
• No implied exclusivity, such as calling yourself the official dealer.
• Website standards, such as current prices or links to the maker.

The second matters most on the day the relationship ends. The address on every van and invoice can then be claimed by a company you no longer sell for.

When the supplier changes

Dealers switch brands for good reasons: better margins, better support, a line that suits their customers. The domain does not switch with them.

A site at the old brand's address now sells a competitor's product, which confuses customers and invites a complaint. People searching for the old brand land on a business that no longer carries it.

Even without any dispute, a domain named after a brand you no longer carry sends the wrong message every time a customer types it.

And if the domain must be handed over, everything built on it goes too: the website's address, every email address, and the links other sites have made to it over the years.

Your name in the address

Build the domain on your own business name, the one on your sign and your paperwork. If the name is long, a short form customers already use will do.

Then give each brand you carry its own page: its name in the title and heading, the models you stock, the approved logo, and what you do for owners of that brand.

Adding a brand means adding a page. Dropping one means retiring a page. The address never has to change.

A worked example

A golf cart dealer in an Okanagan town sells new and used carts to golf courses, resorts and retirement communities, and services and rents them for weddings and tournaments.

In 2008 it registered a domain made of its main brand's name and the town's, and put it on the shop sign, both service vans and every invoice.

Last year it took on a second brand with a lower price range. The first manufacturer asked for the domain back, as the dealer agreement allowed.

The dealer registered a domain built on its own business name and moved the site there, with a page for each brand and pages for servicing and rentals.

The manufacturer agreed to a few months of redirects. Each old page pointed to its match, email moved to the new addresses, and the vans were relettered at their next service.

The brands now sit on pages the dealer controls. Adding or dropping a line changes a page, not the address.

The search argument

The usual reason for a brand domain is search. Owners expect an address containing the brand and the town to rank well for searches containing both.

Search engines rank pages mostly on what is on them and who links to them. A brand name in the address adds little, and the manufacturer's own site will usually rank first for its own name anyway.

Pages about each brand you carry, on your own domain, compete for those searches perfectly well, and they belong to you.

Moving off a brand domain

First, register the new domain to the business itself, in an account the business controls.

Move the site and redirect each old page to its own counterpart on the new domain, not to the home page. Use the change of address tool in Webmaster Tools to tell Google about the move.

Keep the old domain redirecting for as long as you are allowed to, and move email addresses early, since customers will keep writing to the old ones. Then update your Google My Business listing, directories and printed material.

Until the agreement says otherwise, keep renewing the old domain. A lapsed brand domain can be registered by anyone, including a competitor.

The counter-case

Some manufacturers license dealer domains on purpose, with written permission and an approved naming pattern. If you have that permission in writing and expect to carry the brand for good, the risk is smaller.

Even then, register a domain on your own name as well, and use it for email. It costs little and protects the part of the business that would be hardest to move.

For everyone else, the advice is simple: your name in the domain, the brands on the pages.

This month

1. Read your dealer agreement for domain clauses.
2. Check who is registered as each domain's owner.
3. Register a domain on your own name.
4. Give each brand a page on your site.
5. Redirect each old page to its match.
6. Move email to the new domain early.
7. Update your listing and the main directories.

Step one costs nothing and settles most of the question. If the agreement forbids brand domains or lets the manufacturer claim them, you know where you stand before any letter arrives.

A genuine letter about a domain looks nothing like the scare emails described in the urgent email about your name in foreign domains.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.