Protecting your business from “spreading”

Here is another aspect of your business that you may have not considered. Think this as a way to stop “spreading”. This form of humiliation was originated in 2003 to humiliate then Senator Rick Santorum. An activist has created “spreading-santorum.com” to humiliate the senator’s strong objections over gay marriages. At the time it attracted only about 230,000 hits online. However, mentioning of the site and its humiliating content about Santorum started to attract more hits lately due to Santorum’s run for presidency. Other presidential candidates have learned a lesson from this and bought similar domain name to protect themselves from activists.

Lesson for small business owners, think ahead and protect your business. Not only positives, also expects negatives and protect yourself from this kind of negative activism. Each additional domain may cost you $10.00 but it will be the best dollar you spent on protecting your business from unhappy customers.

This is not new. In mid 2000s Google dealt with “Google bombing”, a method linking a target with a negative phrase. Later Google developed a new algorithm to curtail the attack. So, it is not just for high profile individuals, you can learn from their mistakes and protect your business.