Huckster: a seller of small articles, usually of cheap or shoddy quality - the latest in a series about the domain-name industry…

An email plopped into Media UK’s inbox the other day, promising a “prime domain” just for me:
Would Media UK be interested in purchasing our domain name OneMedia.co.uk?
Most of our clients are now finding that prime domains such as this pay for themselves within weeks rather than months by virtue of the extra business that they drive to their websites by means of type in traffic and greatly enhanced search engine positions.
I would strongly advise an early contact if this is of interest.

Sounds interesting. a “prime domain” - which drives extra traffic because of “type in traffic” and “greatly enhanced search engine positions”. I did a little research. In order to sell a domain-name, either people needed to be searching for it, or it had to be high on Google’s ‘pagerank’ (so it appears high in Google searches), or it needs high traffic figures.

Popping along to Google websearch, let’s search for “one media”, or without the quotes, just to see if it turns up. It doesn’t, not on the first page anyway (and who ever goes to the second page?). This possibly isn’t a splendid start.

Still, even if it’s not obvious, people must be searching for it, right? Next stop: Google Trends, which monitors what people are searching for. Punch in “one media”, which onemedia.co.uk should rule the roost in, and given it’s a “.co.uk”, select the United Kingdom as the region you want the data from. And, er, look. Not quite the best of starts. Nobody’s searching for “one media” at all.

Still, hey, there just might be loads of traffic there. Let’s see what Alexa has to say… oh, that’s not so good either.

Well, at least it might rank high on Google’s pagerank system, the magic number that has direct bearing on your search results. Media UK, and this website, are pagerank “6″. And checking onemedia.co.uk’s pagerank gives a slightly less impressive… 0.

Beware the hucksters. While this isn’t in any way illegal, this is an entirely worthless domain - a little research goes a long way.

Photo: Bruce Alderson. Used under licence. A different version of this posting appeared on June 16th, with the company named and shamed, which I removed shortly after posting. It’s not hard for you to find out who the company is, but it’s probably not too fair for me to do a frukt on them, and be their second hit on Google. Thanks to those of you who noticed it and urged me to repost it.

Aviva Li writes to my mediauk.com address from the other side of the world - indeed, from something calling itself “Asia Domain Name Registration Ltd”. He writes with some concerning news.

There’s a company called “Viva International Holdings Ltd” who’ve just applied with them to register a ton of domain-names with ‘mediauk’ in them - like mediauk.net.cn or mediauk.com.hk, etc. He helpfully lists about ten.

“After an initial examination we have found that the keyword and domain names applied for are the same as your company’s name and trademark. … If you want to protect your domains, we will send you a dispute application form”.

I’m used to scams online, but this one had me suckered for a few minutes. How dare Viva be trying to steal my name? What are they trying to do? Of course I’d like to stop them! Thank you, the unlikely-named Aviva, for your kind diligence in… oh, hang on a minute.

First: “After an initial examination we have found that the keyword and domain names applied for are the same as your company’s name and trademark” looks all very well, until you consider that Media UK isn’t a company - it’s wholly owned by Not At All Bad Ltd. And “Media UK” is not a trademark either, being a rather too generic name to trademark successfully. And this extra word ‘keyword’ which has popped in here looks scary - you need keywords for search engines, right? - except you don’t register keywords.

So… why has Aviva bothered to tell me this?

“If you want to protect your domains, we will send you a dispute application form”. Neat wording. They’re not MY domain-names, yet Aviva has now made me think they are. And now all I need to do is ask for a form to - wait a second - register these domains. Clever!

Additionally, one might ask why Viva (curiously, a name with the dubious honour of two failed UK radio stations being called it) would want to register “Media UK” in China. After all, the only reason I registered that is because media.co.uk was taken.

So, if you wanted, you could rewrite this email as:

Dear CEO,
We’ve made up a story you’ll never be able to check to scare you into buying some domain-names you don’t need at a vastly-inflated price. Send us your money.
Lots of love,
Aviva
PS: I’m named after a large European insurance company, and I also sound a little like a big bus company too.

Photo: Chris Bersbach. Used under licence