Speed of Squatting: Tiger Woods Follow-Up

The news and rumors about Tiger Woods’s crash and the circumstances surrounding it continue to dominate the media.  However, each breaking story that develops about Woods’s alleged affairs and other activities is old news to one group: domain name squatters.  We were pretty surprised to see that key domains like TigerWoodsCrash.com were registered the same day as the accident.  But even more surprising was finding out that names like TigerWoodsAffair.com and TigerWoodsRachelUchitel.com were also registered that day, even before major news outlets were covering the possibility of an affair.  By the time we published our last blog post on this topic on November 30, six additional affair- or scandal-related domain names had been registered.  Since that day, only two more intuitive domains have been registered: TigerWoodsScandals.com on December 3 and TigerWoodsPrenup.com on December 7.

Squatters know how to snatch up the key domain names related to breaking news topics fast.  If the Tiger Woods example is any indication, the most intuitive domain names are taken within the first 72 hours of the news breaking.  It seems like domain squatters could give the press a run for their money.