- Mar 10, 2010
- 42,695
- 107,111
One of the things I do to generate traffic and ultimately revenue is take advantage of brands. Granted, I could get hit with a civil lawsuit with one of those guys I trade on but that has not yet happened and I doubt it is worth their time and energy as well as the publicity as I'm just an old guy trying to eek out a living on the internet.
I'm not going to go into details as to what my specific niches are and what companies' brand names I use but 99% of you would know the companies and that is specifically why I use them... they are known and trusted.
Some of the hosting I use for this is offshore but that still does not protect me 100% as those companies will follow the money if they are really interested in shutting someone down. For that reason I use corporations for my online revenue. Go ahead and sue the corporation, I could care less.
You don't even have to go to such precautions actually as you usually only get a C&D and if you just shut the site(s) down they don't do anything in most instances... even Google let me slide by just shutting the site down and transferring a 10.00 domain to them. I don't usually transfer the domain but it was Google and I didn't think it wise to dance around them.
Some of the traffic to this site I'm sharing stats to below was paid (adwords) and some came from FB group sharing and when I got hit with the C&D (second time with this company) I left it up but did not advertise until they sent me a second notice.
At that point it made sense to call it a day and move on.
The reason for this thread is to let you know that you can push the envelop in that arena without too much fear of getting in any kind of real trouble. C&Ds are a dime a dozen and I know a bunch of guys from here get them and some guys probably have enough to wallpaper their living room.
The first one or two can be unsettling but after that they are fine for starter paper for your fireplace or woodstove, good to use to scoop up dog poop or even use the back of their letters for notes if you are working on a little project.
The money you can make from trading on a big boy's name is incredible so the risk reward is a no brainer if you can just realize you are not going to get beat up.
Breaking the law in such a way that you could be held liable in a criminal situation is not cool or acceptable; using someone's trademark or business name is just a civil matter and not illegal so I do not suggest you break the law.
I'm not even suggesting that you do what I do but I am telling you that you can make more than cheap beer money if you expand your horizons a little bit and take advantage of things that may scare you a little bit but are generally just a minor issue but ony scares you because it comes on an attorney's letterhead.
So if you are looking to expand on what you are doing and are not afraid to get a letter from someone who spent a bunch of money to go through law school, you can get an awful lot of targeted traffic to your site if you play the game the way I do when I operate in this manner.
Be smart if you do and make sure that the advertisers you are using are OK with this, or better yet, create your own product and really bank.
Traffic stats:
I'm not going to go into details as to what my specific niches are and what companies' brand names I use but 99% of you would know the companies and that is specifically why I use them... they are known and trusted.
Some of the hosting I use for this is offshore but that still does not protect me 100% as those companies will follow the money if they are really interested in shutting someone down. For that reason I use corporations for my online revenue. Go ahead and sue the corporation, I could care less.
You don't even have to go to such precautions actually as you usually only get a C&D and if you just shut the site(s) down they don't do anything in most instances... even Google let me slide by just shutting the site down and transferring a 10.00 domain to them. I don't usually transfer the domain but it was Google and I didn't think it wise to dance around them.
Some of the traffic to this site I'm sharing stats to below was paid (adwords) and some came from FB group sharing and when I got hit with the C&D (second time with this company) I left it up but did not advertise until they sent me a second notice.
At that point it made sense to call it a day and move on.
The reason for this thread is to let you know that you can push the envelop in that arena without too much fear of getting in any kind of real trouble. C&Ds are a dime a dozen and I know a bunch of guys from here get them and some guys probably have enough to wallpaper their living room.
The first one or two can be unsettling but after that they are fine for starter paper for your fireplace or woodstove, good to use to scoop up dog poop or even use the back of their letters for notes if you are working on a little project.
The money you can make from trading on a big boy's name is incredible so the risk reward is a no brainer if you can just realize you are not going to get beat up.
Breaking the law in such a way that you could be held liable in a criminal situation is not cool or acceptable; using someone's trademark or business name is just a civil matter and not illegal so I do not suggest you break the law.
I'm not even suggesting that you do what I do but I am telling you that you can make more than cheap beer money if you expand your horizons a little bit and take advantage of things that may scare you a little bit but are generally just a minor issue but ony scares you because it comes on an attorney's letterhead.
So if you are looking to expand on what you are doing and are not afraid to get a letter from someone who spent a bunch of money to go through law school, you can get an awful lot of targeted traffic to your site if you play the game the way I do when I operate in this manner.
Be smart if you do and make sure that the advertisers you are using are OK with this, or better yet, create your own product and really bank.
Traffic stats:
