When Rank and Rent Goes Wrong......

[MaestroDelWeb]

I'm fairly certain people have gone to prison for this just so everyone is aware of the full dangers of doing this.

Where you might run into trouble is many states require license numbers, certain text and legal business names to be displayed for certain types of companies. I heard years ago a couple of people had to pay fines. I haven't heard anything else in years though.

 

[yourdady]

I don’t disclose my listings to my renters..!

 

[wpsokw]

Sorry to hear about your experience OP. Hopefully all the bhw brethren have shared some great suggestions.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get started into "rank and rent"? Thanks!

 

[Nut-Nights]

Did you abuse him before ending the call?

 

[323410]

I don’t disclose my listings to my renters..!

So you just sell the leads and don't tell them they are coming from a site that's ranking better than theirs?

 

[homeriscool]

Morons will be morons. Congrats on ranking so well though! How long did it take you?

Took me 1 month ! No B.S

 

[homeriscool]

Hey man, i'm curious, how money do you need to rank a site like that?

all in all cost me about $30 I done everything myself.

 

[AngelSeo]

But yeah he can complain to Google.. and Google will review the complain in the next 10 years or so.

 

[homeriscool]

Years ago I built out some rank and rent sites, I had tons sitting that I never sold.

One day this guy calls me and tells me he's going to sue me for stealing his name. The site had a phone number on it but it was forwarded to a voicemail. The whois had fake information. He got my phone number from Twilio.

I search around google and can't find what he's talking about. He says go on Yahoo. I type in Los Angeles Plumbing or something like that and I'm ranked number one. His website is LosAngelesPlumbingProInc.com. He's ranked like number 5. Instead of pissing him off more since I didn't have a customer for the site I just forwarded the site to his domain.

Thinking back I should have just told him to fuck off or pay.

Interesting story. Did you struggle to rent them out?

 

[homeriscool]

So you just sell the leads and don't tell them they are coming from a site that's ranking better than theirs?

yes thats the best way to do it. Thats what i will be doing in future. Or build a crappy site in about 5 mins and tell them thats the site getting the leads ( without revealing the real one). Just say your sending traffic from social media to the crap site.

 

[GringoMonkey]

As @Rj268 says you probably trod on his toes. Take no notice.

I once had a prospective customer who was equally rude when i was trying to sell to him.

So i said fine i wont sell to you and then he threatened to sue me for not selling to him!

His business went bankrupt a few months later...

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Where you might run into trouble is many states require license numbers, certain text and legal business names to be displayed for certain types of companies.

That usually applies only if you are a company providing the service and not a company gathering and selling leads.

If one is renting the site though, you are spot on sharing that as there could be an issue with the State (USA for sure) although I don't know how much they monitor that.

Lawyers do get monitored heavily for their sites and have all kinds of restrictions and responsibilities but I would bet that tradesmen don't get monitored as heavily.

Good point though and one that should be in this discussion.

 

[DEFINE]

He can't do shit to you, he is just angry. Just ignore him and try someone else and see how it goes.

 

[MaestroDelWeb]

Interesting story. Did you struggle to rent them out?

Yes and very badly. I thought everyone was going to buy quickly. I ended up with tons of unsold inventory and later let most of the domains drop.

It was 100% my fault. I didn't enough time and effort to sell the sites properly.

 

[homeriscool]

As @Rj268 says you probably trod on his toes. Take no notice.

I once had a prospective customer who was equally rude when i was trying to sell to him.

So i said fine i wont sell to you and then he threatened to sue me for not selling to him!

His business went bankrupt a few months later...

This has to be one of the craziest rank and rent stories yet! Some people are outrageous ha ha. Thanks for sharing your insight.

 

[homeriscool]

Yes and very badly. I thought everyone was going to buy quickly. I ended up with tons of unsold inventory and later let most of the domains drop.

It was 100% my fault. I didn't enough time and effort to sell the sites properly.

Thats bad news man. I will try to avoid that pitfall. As you know this takes a lot of time to set up. Thanks for sharing.

 

[DuckingOutstanding]

for this just so everyone is aware of the full dangers of doing this.

But I absolutely agree he's a twat haha. He's just pissed he's missing out on that business.

In what country?!?!?! I can only speak for California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington (in the US) but the only way that would be illegal here is if you: A) were impersonating an existing registered business in a deliberate attempt to confuse their customer base and/or steal their business (would have to be targeted at a specific business - let's say you were pissed off at "Jay's Laptops" and wanted to stick it to them - pretending to have (but actually not registering and not intending to do business as, or in be connected with the fulfillment of a service or product as) "Jey's Laptops" - and let's say Jay's had "JaysLaptops.net", and you got lucky and swooped on "jayslaptops.com", "jays-laptops.net" etc and maybe made a logo that looked substantially similar - and no actual service is being provided connected this, and you're collecting money somehow - THAT would be "Business Identity Theft" which is definitely a jailable offence..

On the other hand, if your name or initial happens to start with a J - and you actually intend on a service to an end user can benefit from (even if you're just providing lead generation and someone else is benefiting from your traffic) and you swoop on the same "jayslaptops.com" or "jayslaptop.com" - and either register an ein online, and apply for an LLC within a reasonable time or file a DBA/FBN with city hall as a sole prop Doing business as "jay's laptops" you're in the clear - no matter how pissed off they get or how obviously deliberate it may be TO THEM AND YOU it is, they can't do shit - unless they can prove in the court of law that you did this abscent of motive to open operate a bonefide business of any sort and solely to damage them and then prove that their business or reputation was damaged AND that it was a direct result of your actions..

In other words - unless you're blatantly scamming people and taking money for a service that doesn't exist, no you can't go to jail for that here lol

 

[hackgrowth]

I was always afraid of this happening to R&R GMBs.

OP, was there a website for the GMB and did it have good engagement?