To Redirect or Not

[dogtopiamichigan]

I have a strange situation and looking for advice on how well a permanent redirect of url will work.

I have an eCommerce site called twpstain.com. This site sells TWP Deck stain and the URL/Content is fully owned by me. We do not however own the TWP brand and have always operated with permission from the manufacturer as an Authorized dealer. Circumstance have come up where they now want to be in control of all URLS that have the name "TWP" in them. Not sure if they legally can do this but they can cut me off with product if I do not comply. My options are:

1. A permanent redirect of entire site to new URL that does not have the word "TWP" in the url.

2. Give them the URL but they are willing to have me use the URL as I have in the past. A contract for this would be drawn up to cover me for years to come and possibly offer compensation if they decide not to renew.

My concerns are numerous but the question for the Moz community is to how well the 301 redirect will work and will I lose my rankings? I currently dominate the rankings for my site and I very concerned that there will be major loss of sales and traffic.

Any help or opinions on this would be much appreciated.

[MonicaOConnor]

If you have to change your domain name then you will most likely suffer rankings loss. You will redirect the old domain to the new domain, which will temporarily help, but you will basically have to work on the new URLs to get them to rank.

What they are asking for seems strange. Do they sell direct as well?

[RyanPurkey]

The contractual option sounds like it would be the best in this situation, especially since the site is solely dedicated to one brand.

Even with the contract in place you could still develop a separate site that carries multiple brands and begins to rank in other areas. That way you'd have some insurance if the contractual route eventually ends and not have to redirect form scratch.

[HashtagHustler]

Wow,

Now this is quite a quagmire. TWP owns TWP-Stain.com and obviously is upset that you rank higher than they do for their own product, even though you sell their product. I probably would have thought you were the company if I didn't snoop around and hadn't met you on Moz.

Unfortunately because your domain name does include their brand, and is an identifying factor of the company to the public I believe they could technically take legal action. If the domain was "woodstains.com" it would be different because that's a generic term. (I AM NOT A LAWYER I JUST HAVE GONE THROUGH SOMETHING SIMILAR).

Regardless, in my opinion you are in a situation where they could potentially take over if they wanted to regardless of your wants and needs.

My Thoughts:

1. 301 redirects do work, they will cause a drop in ranking, the more similar the content the better, but they will hurt.
2. Another option would be to start a new website selling your goods and just negotiate a price to let them use that domain? That's what I do currently. I was in a situation where I ended up stepping out of a company, but I owned the domain. I still own it, but the DNS records point to their server, that way they are still in control of everything.
3. Create another website, give them control of them domain, play by their rules, and link this current website to your new website. Take the stipend from them, let them worry about this website and profit. (Ryan typed it faster than me)

Hope this helps a little!

[dogtopiamichigan]

Thanks. They do not sell direct.

[dogtopiamichigan]

I already do but this one ranks the best. Thanks for the help.

[dogtopiamichigan]

1. Redirect and content would be the exact same as I own the content and data.2. They want the URL but they want to make a contract with me and have the DNS point back to my site. Issue is they can play hardball and switch the DNS if they want or void the contract on conclusion.

Thanks for help!

[MonicaOConnor]

Several years ago when I first started in SEO, I bought domains that were relatively close to my competition's domains, it was a competitive tactic that is quite out dated. However, I never suffered any legal ramifications. My sites were not always live, they were just bought to prevent my competition from buying them.

That being said, I do not believe that they are trying to take the domain away from you for any other reason than it is their brand name and they want control of it, or they want it to disappear. You do not have to give them control of the site, I wouldn't personally. I would hate to have someone running my site, no thank you.

Having a brand is becoming extremely important for SEO. You are probably ranking so well because your domain includes an established brand. I would buy a domain that reflects the name of your business, your brand, and redirect the twpstains.com to that domain. You will see the most benefit from this approach. You will be able to maintain most of your SEO juice and be able to recover faster than if they take control of the domain and decide to do something else with it, like redirect it to their site, or redirect their site to twpstains.com. It wouldn't be in their best interest to have both sites running at the same time.

[HashtagHustler]

That would be my concern, if they control the DNS, that would scare me as well.

I still think your best bet would be playing by their rules while spending your time building up a new website.

I would also recommend getting legal advice. I remember long ago I came across Nissan's website which now is functional, but for a while it was just a landing page that stated neither Nissan Computers nor Nissan Motors was allowed to use the website.

If you did a 301 redirect, and this company went hard enough and ended up demanding you to pull the domain, I would hate to see you loose all the 301 potential anyway, simply because they pulled the rug out from under you.

Good luck!!! If I were them I would try and just buy you out!