It was a fight of David versus Goliath, an epic battle that has lasted more than 10 years.
Time and again, Rick Schwartz prevailed in court, thrashing his opponent – cleaning maker W.M. Barr & Co.
As Rick explained at his blog, the cleaning manufacturer attempted twice to wrestle the domain GoofOff.com from his hands – and twice they failed miserably.
Long linked to “wasting time” or “being silly“, the goofoff term appears to be as generic as “pigeon droppings” – but how could the brand of an effective cleaning agent be named after something “wasteful”?
We won’t question the branding geniuses behind the choice of a name for this product; however, it’s interesting to examine the fact that their product “Gooff Off” is #1 in Google results, using the dashed domain Goof-Off.com.
Futhermore, Rick’s domain name GoofOff.com is nowehere to be found, not on the first page, not on the second page of Google results. After looking through the third page we decided we had goofed off too much and gave up.
In other words, what is the actual use of the domain GoofOff.com if Rick is not using it to battle Goliath once again and beat him in his own game, with effective product placement? Instead, GoofOff.com is pointing to Rick’s explanatory post about his legal triumph.
Unfortunately, after all the battling the Goof-Off product is still number one.
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Good points. Not to mention, some dude from Colombia registered goofoff.co !!
So I felt like goofing off one day & typed goofoff.com into my browser thinking, gee I wonder what kind of goof-off would own such a goofy domain name as goofoff.com? Much to my dismay, I see a picture of this goofy looking dude with a goatee & big bold letters at the top loudly proclaiming himself the “domain king”! I guess that’s what I get for goofing off…
Finally, four days later searching for “goof off” brings up Rick’s blog post on page 1 of Google – not the actual domain though.