I just learned about a beautiful new hotel and resort that is scheduled to open at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada next month. The Ravella at Lake Las Vegas has luxuriously well-appointed hotel rooms and suites, a fantastic golf course, meeting rooms, a world class spa, and a number of other wonderful amenities. It looks like a place I want to be right now.
Unfortunately for the Ravella, someone chose a horrible domain name for its website. Believe it or not, the hotel has opted to go with the heavily hyphenated ravella-at-lake-las-vegas-hotel.com. Seriously. *** See Update Below ***
Unfortunately for the hotel, they didn’t even secure the non-hyphenated ravellaatlakelasvegashotel.com domain name. (I HIGHLY recommend readers don’t buy it either because you’re just asking for a UDRP or worse, a lawsuit). With such a beautiful hotel and website, it’s strange that they are opting for this cheap (and cheap looking) domain name.
In case you are wondering, the much shorter, easier to recall, and better looking on stationery domain name, Ravella.com, is owned by domain investment pioneer Gary Chernoff. To make it even easier for the hotel to try and acquire, the domain name is conveniently listed on Sedo, a leading domain brokerage and marketplace. They must keep in mind that Chernoff has owned Ravella.com for nearly a decade, so it obviously is an expensive and valuable asset.
I strongly recommend that the proprietors of the Ravella work out a deal with Gary to buy the Ravella.com domain name.
*** Update ***
I was just made aware that the hotel is marketing RavellaVegas.com to consumers, and it forwards to Ravella-at-Lake-Las-Vegas-Hotel.com. I was not aware that marketing materials use the shorter (and easier to remember) domain name.
Par for the course for Lake Las Vegas, which has had more than it’s fair share of trouble.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/01/shining-lakeside-oasis-loses-its-luster/
Domain is just one of their problems – seems elliots blog outranks them for the search ‘ravella las vegas’ (which is what I’d search for).
You are right, they need to invest now.
I searched for Ravella Las Vegas Hotel and your blog is on the front page. No sign of their website.
RALLV(.)com is available
Acronym
It’s interesting to note that RavellaHotel.com is theirs and forwards to the much longer domain.
ravellahotel.com redirects to them, would probably be a much better choice
Undoubtedly RavellaHotel.com could have a been a FAR better domain (even Ravella-Hotel.com is better, which is currently available btw).
Mr Lin,
In China,
Just registered it …
Domain name: ravellaatlakelasvegashotel.com
Administrative Contact:
William Lin (william@dotmedia.com)
+86.13655985355
Fax:
589 YongMei Road, YongNing Town
ShiShi, FUJIAN 372700
CN
Technical Contact:
William Lin (william@dotmedia.com)
+86.13655985355
Fax:
589 YongMei Road, YongNing Town
ShiShi, FUJIAN 372700
CN
Registrant Contact:
William Lin ()
Fax:
589 YongMei Road, YongNing Town
ShiShi, FUJIAN 372700
CN
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com
Creation date:
Expiration date: 06 Jan 2012 20:29:00
Nice job Mr. Lin…we have a winner.
Trademark? Yep, ‘Ravella’ filed Dec. 21, 2010. Obviously in use before today.
Confusingly similar? Oh yeah, exact when hyphens removed.
Same product on parking page? Yep, lots of hotels.
Another way to monetize? Nope.
This isn’t tough folks. Don’t register domains like this.
Re: The hotel’s name, guarantee that someone either hired a newbie SEO guy or read an SEO 101 article and completely missed the boat on how this stuff works.
They need to fix the mistake by getting out the checkbook quickly. The cost of reprinting stationary and media costs is probably less than the high $xx,xxx cost for the domain.
Stunning.
The individual, possibly in China, who purchased that potentially dodgy domain name has possibly done that before. I don’t remember the circumstances or the details, but I remember doing some research a few months back on some TM-related names and seeing that name come up. I only remembered it in passing because its similar to my name. Having said that, there are probably millions of ‘Lin’s in China.
Yesterday I was sitting on my bed reading Elliotsblog and found out this post, and I decide to register it. and this is my first time register domain like that so Linda, I never done this before.
lanndon, would be appreciate if you can remove my info, thank you.
Elliot, Thanks for the info!
Mr. Lin, You could contact them and offer to transfer it as a service for $100.00, because you did a protective registration in their behalf!
@ WilliamLin “The individual, possibly in China, who purchased that potentially dodgy domain name has possibly done that before”
–> note “possibly”, no firm implication was expressed nor intended, it is a regrettable misunderstanding.
“I only remembered it in passing because its similar to my name. Having said that, there are probably millions of ‘Lin’s in China.”
–> Now we know there are 2 at the very least. 🙂
I agree with Louise, contact them and offer to send it over to them with a small additional ‘commission fee’ for the time spent.
@ Mr Lin
Warning!
Louise is Dead Wrong!
Any Monetary demand could be construed as
Cybersquatting and is punishable on many levels at Law.