Why There Are No Medals For Registering Olympic Related Domain Names

If you are thinking of registering an Olympic related domain name to cash in on the Games coming to London this year, here’s a few words of advice.

Don’t bother.

This is something that I’ve already mentioned on Twitter and Facebook, but I’m currently receiving one or two emails a week from people who have registered an Olympic related domain name and are either developing it or hoping to sell it. Unfortunately, they are wasting their time, so I thought it was a warning worth repeating here.

All of the official names, phrases, trade marks, logos and designs related to the 2012 Games and the Olympic and Paralympic Movements are protected by law. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games have published guidelines regarding this and here are some (but not all) of the words and phrases that if used in a domain name could see you infringing those rights:

The words ‘London 2012′

London2012.com (and various derivatives)

So there you go. Save yourself time, money and a hatful of grief by staying away from Olympic related domain names.

On a personal note, I’ve made my first big domain name purchase of the year – Voyages.co.uk. It had been sold at auction on DomainLore, but the winning bidder never paid for the domain. It was then offered to the second highest bidder, who happened to be me, and I bought it for £2,558. It’ll stay on the backburner for the timebeing, but my plan is to develop it as a website dedicated to high end cruises with the strapline “where a cruise becomes an adventure”.

I’ve also caught a dozen or so domain names this month, including Cortinas.co.uk, Wardance.co.uk, Discontent.co.uk, BradfordElectrician.co.uk and DerbyPlumber.co.uk, and I’ve also uncovered a few “free to register” domains like PosterGirl.co.uk that I believe have value beyond the cost of registering them.

It’s actually been a case of out with the old and in with the new as I finally took the decision to pull the plug on WhatPhone.co.uk. This was one of those sites that I had great hopes for, and I have worked on it in fits and starts over a period of years, but there was always one big problem. I have absolutely no interest in mobile phones. I don’t even own one.

I believe it’s a fantastic domain name, and in the right hands could be developed very successfully, but those hands definitely aren’t mine and so I have put it up for sale. To me it’s a five figure domain name, so if you are interested in buying it, please bear that in mind.

Another website that I have pulled the plug on is CheapPrinting.co.uk. This was actually a website that was built by my son, Scott, when he was barely a teenager, but he hasn’t done anything with it for a few years. It too is now for sale for offers in the region of £5,000.

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My book, Get Out While You Can, is available now from Amazon. It contains a chapter on domain name investing.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list for my forthcoming book, Why Do Only Fools And Horses Work?, send me an email (info@entrepreneur.co.uk) with Fools And Horses in the subject line. I won’t pester you with lots of messages, but I will let you know as soon as it becomes available.