HACKER Q&A
📣 stickfigure

My abandoned domain (and content) being used for blackhat SEO


We shut down a startup about 5 years ago, and a couple years later we abandoned the domain. Recently we noticed someone registered the same domain, copied much of the content (with our brand, logo, company address, copy from many of our pages, etc), and added some spam links to presumably "juice" their SEO.

Is there anything that can be done about this? Is there anything we should have done before abandoning a domain?

If you're curious, it's voo.st

  👤 statquontrarian Accepted Answer ✓
If the startup entity still exists, you can send a cease and desist letter to the domain contact and/or hosting company.

If your entity/trademark no longer exists, I'm not aware of any other legal routes. You could ask the domain contact and/or hosting company politely, telling them they're being deceptive. Failing that, social shame.

👤 CM30
If you own the copyright to the content, you can probably just send the host a DMCA notice or something. Start by sending it to the site, if they ignore it, then contact the hosting company.