“iPhone” Domain Names and Google
** Update ** Google has re-included ThemeiPhone.com back into its index. Thanks Google!
So the past week I 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 portfolio 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:
Others include:
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.
Robert Simpson Said,
January 19, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
Some time ago I had tried to purchase the domain name “PhoneStore.com” after it had expired and had gone into the redemption period (I would have paid something for it besides just the redemption cost). I guess the owner realized it might be valuable and wound up redeeming it himself. Since it is fairly common to add an “i” to the beginning of a domain, I wound up with “iPhoneStore.com” instead (it’s the “i” “Phone Store”, not “iPhone” “Store”). I don’t see how Google can say that Apple has exclusive rights to EVERY domain that puts an “i” in front of a word beginning with “Phone”, since putting “i” before otherwise unavailable domain names was probably common long before Cisco and Apple did it with “Phone”.
Back in 1998, I had tried to trademark the name of the company, and the response from the USPTO was that compund words made up of things in common use like the letter “i” and the words “Phone” and “Store” could not be trademarked (I wound up changing the name of the company to something somewhat pronoucable that was not composed of dictionary words). Based on that, if Apple attempts to register the “iPhone” trademark, I would expect the USPTO to give them the same response.
tank6b Said,
January 21, 2007 @ 12:00 am
I get the same when i check the “iphone wallpaper” on google and I Was NUMBER ONE for 3 days on my website blackrune.net next i get into iphonelive.org.
Luck width your new site.
Tom Ferris Said,
January 21, 2007 @ 12:21 am
tank6b: Yeah I saw that.. Looks like Google re-included your site back into the index also.