RNC speaker slammed in parody web site: Learning the hard way

Speaker’s firm name registered for parody web site.

Tonight at the Republican National Convention, modest business owner and Delaware Lt. Governor candidate Sher Valenzuela will address the crowd.

The theme of the day is “We Built It”, playing off of Barack Obama’s remarks regarding how the government plays a role in society.

Valenzuela helped build her business First State Manufacturing into a successful modest business.

The firm proudly displays its accomplishments at FirstStateMFG.com. I can understand the domain name; it’s much shorter to type than spelling out ‘manufacturing’.

But there’s a problem. No one at the firm thought to go ahead and register the long version FirstStateManufacturing.com. And with Valenzuela taking center stage on “we built it” day, someone has registered the domain name to create a parody site.

As it turns out, First State Manufacturing has received quite a bit of help from Uncle Sam, and the parody site makes light of that.

When I google “First State Manufacturing”, the real web site shows up first and the parody second.

I’m not sure if Valenzuela could have prevented a parody site from going up even if her firm owned the domain name. There are plenty of possible variations and top level domains. But it sure made her an easy target.

(Hat tip: Bill Sweetman.)