One way to get "toon tube" re-associated with this site in Google searches for that phrase is to encourage users of this site who have their own Web sites to link to this site specifically with that phrase. This can be done in forums, for people who are regular members of relevant forums. The important thing is to make "Toon Tube" the text that somebody clicks on to come here (e.g., not just the URL, nor an alternative phrase). I just added a message to the Trivial Talk forum on MyVidsRock.com to demonstrate what I mean (and add that influence over how Google ranks links for that phrase).

Google really does seem to pay attention to this sort of thing, I've been able to get other sites into the top 3 links for specific phrases I wanted to target, just by using a consistent phrase for link text.

It may also help for Google users (those with accounts) to mark up or mark down sites accordingly. I just did that, in fact -- I did a search for "toontube" and used the "delete from results" feature for the porn-related search results.

One good thing, though, is that people looking for family-friendly videos may not think to search Google for "Toon Tube" but may use phrases like "videos safe for kids" and that sort of thing. So although this is an unfortunate situation, hopefully the real impact will be minimal.

Good Information. Thanks for the advice. I have some work ahead of me but it really helps to have such great members like yourself helping me out. Thanks!

That is an unfortunate situation. I notice that we fare better in a search for toontube (where we come in as the 2nd result) than we do for "toon tube" (where we are further down the list). I think that is probably because "toontube" is actually part of our url (while "toon tube" is not).

The porn site, however, has the advantage of actually having "toontube" as part of their main url, whereas in our case it is only a subdomain. There is also a "ToonTube.com" which forwards to a third site, but it doesn't seem to rank as well - I think Google ranks forwards lower.

Anyway, to expand on Stuart's suggestion regarding the "family friendly" sort of phrasing, maybe changing the alternate text on the logo above from "ToonTube" to "ToonTube Animation Community - Watch, rate, and share family friendly animations" would help a bit, as I've read that alt tags for images are used by search engines. Might get us some Google image search traffic eventually too.

I find the whole thing really disgusting. I wrote a little entry in my blog about it, hopefully to help spread the word.

forgot: http://kennedy-white-house.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all of the advice and support guys!

It looks like I can trademark the name for $325, according to this http://www.uspto.gov/teas/teasplus.htm

Unfortunately I don't have that kind of money. Looks like for now I am going to have to pray they don't trademark it hope for the best.

Registering a trademark can cost a lot more than that, because it's a legal process that can accrue some serious hourly fees from a lawyer. On the other hand, you can still put TM on it without registering it. (The R-in-circle symbol indicates a registered trademark, TM by itself indicates an unregistered trademark.) There's no cost, paperwork, etc., you just add it. You can then back it up with a statement on the site along the lines of "ToonTube is a trademark of Wes Abrams." What this does is make it clear that you are motivated to protect the mark, even though it's not registered.

After you've established that, you could potentially approach the owners of the other sites -- if you can find them -- and demand that they cease the use of your trademark. If you demonstrate how long you've been using the mark, and if you can get the demand written up by a lawyer as a formal letter (at a much lower cost than the process of registering a trademark), then it *might* work. They're not technically required to stop, but they might just back down if it sounds legally risky to them to continue using it. (I'm not a trademark lawyer, so this is casual commentary based on past experience, and not legal advice.)

Interesting stuff. I added it at the bottom in the footer. Do you think I should add it on the actual logo?

I checked and the adulttoontube site is only 6 months old.

I really do thank you for the advice. I really need to work on getting Toon Tube with a space at the top of the search. ToonTube does ok in the search. It is still sad the sites come up at all though.

I do think it would be good to add a small TM to the logo itself, although it doesn't need to appear on every instance of the term. I believe it's supposed to go on the first prominent appearance, which would definitely be the logo in the upper-left corner. With it there, you don't need to worry about adding it to other instances (e.g., in the navigation links).

I'm not sure if placement matters, I'd probably make it quite small and put it to the right of the lower part of the 'e' in Tube.

(With the caveat that I'm not a trademark lawyer either and anything I say in this thread is just my own layman's opinion and not legal advice) I'm not certain whether or not ToonTube meets the legal definition of being well-known enough to the public (or old enough) to have acquired what lawyers refer to as "secondary meaning". See the link below for the Nolo Press definition of seconary meaning:

http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/BE8F6629-507F-4764-9EB49E200EEFC500/alpha/S/

If a lawyer were to become necessary at some point, I wonder if there might be any free resources available - Maybe a State "legal aid" service available to anyone below a certain income threshhold or perhaps the local Chamber or Commerce might be able to refer you to a lawyer who does pro bono work for small businesses.

Additional Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

http://www.amazon.com/Patent-Copyright-Trademark-Intellectual-Reference/dp/1413309208/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248232867&sr=1-4

(The wikipedia article seems like a good run-thru of some of the various aspects of trademark law. Although I have not read the Nolo Press book, it seems highly regarded, and I was very impressed by their book on the Public Domain, which I have read).

If you were to ask 10 random people on the street if they've heard of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (to use that example), quite a few -- perhaps all -- would say yes. If you were to apply that same test to this Web site, I think few -- perhaps none -- would. (Yet! We can always work on that, right?!) Also, "ToonTube" isn't something that people might say in normal daily language, unlike "Ben", "Jerry", or "Ben & Jerry". So, in a nutshell, I don't think that the potential for protection under "secondary meaning" is relevant in this case.

Another thing about trademarks that a lot of people don't understand (and which trademark owners would probably be happy if people didn't learn) is that they are for specific things. Take the Windows trademark, for example. I could probably create a product that punches new holes in walls, call it Windows, and register Windows as a trademark for that product; however, if I were to create an operating system (or anything that would fit a generalized description of an operating system), I would have a snowball's chance in you-know-where if I tried to call it Windows or try to register "Windows" as a trademark for it. The issue is consumer confusion -- if an average consumer might be confused by overlapping trademarks, there's a problem. If not, then you can have overlapping trademarks. Again using the Windows trademark example, if my wall-punching product used the exact same logo as the operating system, that could confuse a consumer, who might think that Microsoft created the wall-punching product. So even though I could probably name it Windows, I couldn't use the operating-system-Windows logo.

For ToonTube, this is relevant in that the trademark should be associated with a Web site that delivers legally-distributed animated video content. Note that I didn't say "family friendly" or anything like that, because that would leave a door open to the very problem we're discussing here. One of the "tricks" in registering a trademark (and patents, etc.) is to make it as general as possible, to cover the broadest ground possible -- but it can't cover "everything."

Very interesting information. There is just so much going on with right now I am really confused as what to do at the moment. You guys are giving me some great resources and opinions though. I guess the ultimate question will be will I eventually do something and try to make them change thier name or just try to do what I can to make sure people associate ToonTube with this site through the advice you guys are giving or just change the name all together. What to do....

That's a good point, Stuart, about trademarks being for specific things and the advantage of having one's trademark cover as broad an area as possible.

For a name itself, on the other hand, it seems that the less general it is, the easier it is to defend a trademark. To stick with the ice cream example, I imagine it would be a lot harder to defend "Good ice cream" as a trademark than it would be to defend "Green Goose ice cream" or some other very unique phrase.

I can sympathize with your confusion Wes. Sometimes the more I learn in areas like this, the more questions pop into my head :)