Website Mock Templates

JFairview

Hi All,

Just contacted Consumer Direct, who now answer questions on behalf of/for Trading Standards for a query that had no answer to!!!!....what's new?

Basically, if you are a website designer whereby you want to create Mock websites/templates for your portfolio but at the same time put them live on the net to try and get them to the top of google, to showcase your skills of ranking, seo and marketing for example; what is the law / trading standards take on this?

Example - If I create a builders themed website with a made up name as not to tread on any real businesses toes (i.e. Name: Bobby Builders London). I do not put anything on the website relating to an address or telephone number (because I am not trading; obviously it is a made up name and website). I then clearly put in the header of the website "PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS NOT A REAL COMPANY OR REAL WEBSITE - IT IS PURELY A MARKETING WEBSITE TEMPLATE". Would this be okay or would I still be trading in some way.

I am self-employed but I am looking at this as a non-revenue thing. I.e. It is for genuine market research only; just in the same way as if I was doing this research offline. In other words, how can you do this kind of research without it being a trading standards or hmrc issue.

To clarify; I don't mind saying this is a website template that is a part of my business/business research to trading standards or hmrc but I am asking here more on the trading standards side of things (i.e. do they let you create mock websites?).

Thanks for your time

John

CIS

You'd be doing nothing illegal as long as you weren't passing off as another trading company.

InsideInsurance

What "issues" do you think you will potentially face? Are you thinking IP issues? HMRC? Trading Standards? ASA?

Assuming your designing it yourself, your not using anyone elses registered trademarks, you dont call it something that uses a protected word (eg British Builders) etc etc and you dont gather any information from visitors beyond the norm captured by the webservers/ Google Analytics etc then you should be fine.

Obviously if you decided that you want to put a contact form on it or quote generator or equiv and then sell those details to a real business as a hot lead then you start getting into DPA issues and ensuring your "promises" are met by all those you sell the details to.

JFairview

Hi InsideInsurance,

I just wondered if I made a builders website to show off my seo skills and so on if trading standards saw it, or a proper builder saw it, and looked at it as competition and/or knocking the builder off their top spot with a mock website. Trading standards might feel I am actually a proper builders business in some strange way (even though it will state mock website notices) or that I am hindering the proper builder. Worse still if there was a Bobby Builders London company or sole-trader out there! They might think I am treading on their trade/business.

As said, I don't mind declaring to ts and hmrc but I just wondered what the story was on making mock websites for research purposes.

As a side not, btw, I was actually using a .co.uk for personal use and therefore had my details hidden as an individual. When I created a mock massage website nominet said I had to show my details because they saw my mock website as part of a business; albeit a research part of the business.

Thanks for all the replies btw, much appreciated and very helpful.

John

InsideInsurance

IP is going to be the biggest "risk", that here is a Bobby Builders London, but it doesnt take long nor is it hard to check that one out. Given you dont need any "brand" you may as well chose a random string of characters before whatever keywords you're wanting to ensure is in your domain name.

TS, HMRC etc are not going to care about you creating a website that doesnt trade but out ranks websites of companies that do.

JFairview

Okay, three final questions on this matter.

1) How do you find out a list of trading names just like the ones on the companies house webcheck page? Is there a Trading As webchecker?

2) I heard that a Trading As name is not protected like a company name (is this true?) and therefore I could set up a company as Bobby Builder London Ltd and even if someone was Trading As Bobby Builder London they could not do anything with regards to my mock website with the same name (is this correct?). If so, what would stop me from making a mock Trading As name (i.e. as the same name as a real Trading As name).

3) Supposing, for arguments sake, I did actually pick a name that was a real Trading As name for my mock website but without realising it (i.e. if there is no Trading As webchecker); could the real Trading As person take action?......even if I spotted the error straight away?

I'm just thinking ahead so that I do not get any nasty surprises along the way. I hate surprises!

Regards

John