ethical or not ??? please answer

[DomainManagement]

i would like to ask a question to the forum

Do you think its ethical that a seo company that is engaged by a client

then buys up domains in the clients industry ??? without asking the client ??

is this not a conflict of interests



i would be really interested in peoples replies thank you

the reason for asking is i meet with a really nice chap last week who wanted to buy some domains names from me , but then told me a story about this happening to him , the sad thing is , its a member from here that did it
and before i mention there name i wish to know if i am being over moralistic

Best regards Steve

 

[bensd]

I suppose it depends on the purpose of buying the domains.

Lots of people who work in the seo industry have their own domain/website portfolio.

 

[360360]

Big clash of interests if you are paying a company for SEO services and the same company buys domains to compete against you.

 

[Whibs]

If it is as clear cut as the client giving work to the company and the client purchased/regged all relevant domains and offered them to his client then this is extremely underhand.

 

[namestrands]

I have seen this before, the SEO company is engaged and paid to target a particular market, you invest the money for their time to research and do the SEO work.

Once your contract is finished they use all that time and research to gratify themselves by directly competing against you.

We have one company who was content writing for us on a niche site, little did we know that they set up another site in DIRECT competition to ours and were billing us for them writing stuff for their own site. When challenged they said it was their right to do so. Thankfully law was in my favour and we managed to cease control of the domain and site.

Its all very well outsourcing, and trust really should not be part of the deal. You have your business to protect and treat it as you would a child, just don't let any idiot into your organisation whether employee, customer or supplier. Insist on non-compete contracts and/or NDA's.

Sometimes its better to use more than one company and factor out different aspects than it is to stick everything in one basket.

 

[GreyWing]

Depends what industry, the site I used to own "Quick Loans" for example, would I have an issue with the seo guys targeting other payday loan stuff for their own site, nope I don't think so.

Would he have been doing stuff on "quick loans now" and trying to out rank me for "quick loans" then yes I would have had some issues with them.

So I guess it is just how direct and close to home it is, in some sectors "same industry, loans etc..." isn't enough to cause concern, yet in some sectors such as fireworks then it is.

 

[DomainManagement]

I suppose it depends on the purpose of buying the domains.

Lots of people who work in the seo industry have their own domain/website portfolio.

but if the seo company was not in this sector before and had not purchased

a domain name relating to this industry before taking on the client ??

 

[peter_w]

Perfectly acceptable as far as I'm concerned in most cases. Most SEO companies have their own networks, and if they take on a client in a sector they don't currently own sites in it is sensible for them to invest in that area. It benefits not only them but also the client.

A lot of SEO contracts will have a non-compete on sector/keywords. Always recommended if there are any concerns.

Any kind of under hand purchasing to immediately resell (especially if it comes with advice to purchase) is of course morally a different matter and certainly not something I'd advocate. But it does happen.

 

[Pred]

but if the seo company was not in this sector before and had not purchased

a domain name relating to this industry before taking on the client ??

how do you know their domain portfolio or future plans?
prss will only do .uk
they may have older domains in .com too and want to develop in years to come

 

[wb]

In my opinion, it depends on whether the domains being purchased are used to benefit the client or to compete with them. If the the client is benefitting directly or indirectly (i.e. traffic or backlinks are fed to them) then it doesn't look like a problem.

If the latter (i.e. the SEO company is targeting keywords that could benefit the client), then there's a conflict of interest. How can the best performance and results be offered to a client if they are actively targeting the same sector?

 

[Pred]

yes, as wb says rightly
they may be building minisites on generic domains to help link to clients site and work a bit of 'magic'

you never know