Inside Donald Trump’s 3,000 Bizarre Domains
The first evening of the RNC was a spectacle. Viewers were treated to a variety of characters all making the case for Trump in their own way, and naturally, a new controversy came with nearly each segment of the show. It was a fascinating window into what day-to-day Donald Trump could be like, given the GOP at his side. In all, the night was a fitting extension of Trump’s abrasive and scattershot overall strategy.
I don’t presume to be a political writer. Thousands of smarter people are already analyzing almost every angle of Donald Trump and his actions. Something I haven’t really seen touched on is Trump’s online strategy — not so much his unfiltered Twitter account or legion of supporters, but his entire online strategy. Before the campaign and before Twitter, how did The Donald operate online?
Turns out, it’s pretty interesting.
Donald Trump owns a ton of domains. Or more accurately, The Trump Organization does. A little while back I got my hands on the full list of around 3,200 and decided to sort through them in order to find out which ones are being used, which aren’t, and to see if there’s anything of note hidden in there.
Before we get into the domains which actually have sites, we should go over the lion’s share of the domains which are parked at a registrar. Many are slight variations on existing business ventures (over 70 are for Trump’s Doral golf destination alone) and some are for brand protection, but there are also a handful which are a little interesting. Among these are:
3dtrump.com, complaintotrump.com, donaldcasinostar.com, donaldtrumpangels.com, donaldtrumpart.com, donaldtrumpbedding.com, donaldtrumpbasicbedding.com, donaldtrumpblog.com, donaldtrumpcandles.com, donaldtrumpcarpet.com, donaldtrumpcrystal.com, donaldtrumpheadwear.com, donaldtrumpjr.asia, donaldtrumpmattress.com, donaldtrumpofficechair.com, donaldtrumpwontshutup.com, gettrumpbonus.com, how-to-build-a-fortune.com, imbeingsuedbythedonald.com, incrediblechristmas.com, intrumpwetrust.com, ivankabathroom.com (in fact, dozens of Ivanka-related home and bath furnishings domains), meettrump.com, no2trump.com, nomoretrump.com, playwithdonald.com (gross), trumpadvice.com, trumpaudio.com, trumpauto.com, trumpcalendars.com, trumpcandlecollection.com, trumpcellgame.com, trumpcertification.com, trumpchampaign.com, trumpdoll.com, trumpfire.com, trumpgrapes.com, trumphand.com, trumpinfotech.com, trumpisfired.com, trumpishired.com, trumpitup.com, trumprecords.com, trumpredwine.com, trumpsoda.com, trumptables.com, trumptats.com, trumpupgrade.com, trumpvan.com, trumpwater.com, womanwhowork.org, youandtrump.com
It’s not clear whether some of these are potential future business plans (Trump Auto? Trump Soda? Trump Candles?) but keep your eyes peeled for Donald Trump’s “TrumpTats” tattoo empire just in case.
*Sucks, *Scam and *Fraud
Several domains feature words like ‘sucks’ or ‘fraud’:
donaldtrumpnetworkfraud.com, donaldtrumpnetworksucks.com, donaldtrumpnetworkscam.com, trumpfraud.com, trumpscam.com, trumpnetworkmarketingsucks.com, trumpfraud.info, thetrumpnetworksucks.com, trumpnetworkmarketingscam.com
Most of these directly reference The Trump Network, one of Trump’s more well-publicized multi-level marketing failures, which left a number of its unfortunate marks filing for bankruptcy. Someone within The Trump Organization saw fit to buy up these disparaging domains just in case one of the victims were to financially recover enough to scrounge together a $9.95 domain registration fee sometime in the future.
Long Live Trump Vodka
One piece of Donald trivia is that he’s never had a drop to drink in his life. That’s all well and good, to each their own, but I can’t think of any quality that makes a person less qualified to sell their own line of booze than being a teetotaler. In 2006 — entirely unconcerned that he had no idea what he was talking about — Donald Trump introduced his own line of vodka. Despite OK-to-decent reviews taste-wise, within a handful of years it had disappeared from shelves due to mismanagement and lack of payment to business partners. The whole operation totally folded, and to this day Donald Trump declines to speak to reporters on his vodka venture. Its slogan was “Success Distilled” for some reason.
The ghost of Trump Vodka lives on, however: A number of domains redirect to the exact URL http://www.trump.com/Merchandise/Trump_Vodka.asp.
donaldjtrumpoffice.com, donaldtrumpoffice.com, ihatetrumpvodka.com, trump-vodka.com, trumpartcollection.com, trumpbloodymary.com, trumpcocktail.com, trumpcosmo.com, trumpdrinks.com, trumponice.com, trumpontherocks.com, trumporg.biz, trumporg.info, trumporg.org, trumporg.us, trumppunch.com, trumpscrewdriver.com, trumpselect.com, trumpthevodka.com, trumptnt.com, trumpvodkasucks.com, trumpwithatwist.com, trumpandoj.com, yourefiredvodka.com
Although the vodka page is long gone and visitors are redirected to the trump.com root site, those redirects still exist. And why do unrelated domains like DonaldTrumpOffice.com and TrumpOrg.biz attempt to take visitors to a vodka-specific page? Hell if I know. But I do know that the domain TrumpAndOJ.com is definitely not a winner for a few reasons.
Trump University
You’ve probably heard of Trump University, an “education” “company” which operated for a few years promising real estate success to students who fork over 5 figures. The New York State Department of Education reminded Trump that, aside from other complaints, using the word “University” in the name of your business suggests you actually teach people things, and the necessary charter and license would be required to call yourself a university. Trump cleverly countered this by changing the name of the business to The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative. A number of domains related to Trump U still exist and redirect to tracking URLs under TrumpUniversity.com, which then pipe you over to The Trump Initiative:
fasttrackforeclosure.com, trumprealestateinvesting.com, trumpopportunity.com, trumpwealthbuilding101.com, trumpforeclosureinvesting.com, trumpfundamentals.com, trumpopportunities.com, trumppossibilities.com, trumpsolutions.com, trumpcourses.com, trumpprobate.com, trumplaunchpad.com, freetrumpevent.com, trumpsummit.com, trumpuniversityok.com, trumpinvesting.com, trumprsvp.com, trumpeventrsvp.com, trumpbonus.com, trumpbonus3.com, trumpbonus4.com, trumprealestateworkshop.com, trumpsuccessworkshop.com
If TrumpBonus, TrumpBonus3 and TrumpBonus4 all exist, what happened to TrumpBonus2? That one is one of several other domains which redirect directly to TrumpInitiative tracking URLs, without first going through the old TrumpUniversity domain:
trumpprotege.com, trumpulive.com, trumpbonus2.com, trumplaborlando.com, trumplabca.com, trumpexpoga.com, trumpstarter.com, trumpstarterkit.com, trumpliveexpo.com, trumpwealthsummit.com
As for why some go to one domain and others to the other, I really don’t know other than to say that this is all a massive, tangled mess with little to no rhyme or reason.
Amid all the scrutiny and legal action, TrumpInitiative.com is now defunct. But instead of any sort of traditional message — something along the lines of “Thanks for your support / We’ll be back” etc. — they have instead decided to take down the member login form and replace it with… a picture of the login form. When I tried to click on the form and realized it was a jpeg I felt like Wile E. Coyote running full-speed into a painting of a tunnel.
Business lesson: Instead of doing anything that may remotely suggest an admission of wrongdoing or defeat, it’s better to just put up a facade and declare that you’re still on top.
Another curiosity is TrumpWorldwide.com, which displays a visibly blank page but has the following HTML title and meta tag:
<title>TrumpWorldwide.com The Vision of Undefined Perfection Worldwide </title><META name=”description” content=”Donald Trump and Trump University in are GIVING AWAY a free e book and DVD on Real Estate. If you want advice, Go to the best! Its Free! Click Now!”>
Bizarre offer aside, I’d never heard the phrase “undefined perfection” before so I googled it. Sure enough, aside from a tumblr and some art things, the phrase is used to describe Machiavelli in the book Machiavelli in the British Isles: Two Early Modern Translations of The Prince. Probably a coincidence.
Congratulations, You’ve Installed Apache
trumprestraurants.com, trumpstores.com, trumpicecreamparlor.com, trumpshop.com, trumprestaurants.com, trumptowerrestaurants.com, trumpicecream.com, trumprestaurant.com, trumpcatering.com, trumpbuffet.com
If this whole election thing doesn’t work out, at least we’ll have Donald Trump Ice Cream and Donald Trump Buffet restaurants. These sites all display a “Please come back later” text placeholder, suggesting dinner and treats are on the way. Shop.IvankaTrump.com, IvankaClothing.com and IvankaEBoutique.com aren’t afforded even that dignity — they only show the default Apache install page.
Web Security
Of the relatively few domains which are being used and serving unique sites, they run the spectrum in amount of basic web security features. DonaldJTrump.com — the campaign’s official site — scores the best of the lot with a CSTAR score of 824. This is within the realm of reasonability for a major web destination which solicits visitor information and money. A lot of other campaigns scored much worse. TrumpHotelCollection.com, the hotel family’s flagship site, also does well with a 798.
It gets worse pretty quickly. Bioceutica.com — the multi-level marketing scam which TrumpNetwork.com now redirects to — scores in the mid-200’s. Donald’s favorite resort, The Mar-a-Lago Club, has a 352. Most if not all of his golf course sites appear to have been made by the same web developer (the dated graphics and same gold tones everywhere suggest this), and score similarly. Melania’s site, MelaniaTrump.com, starts with a huge photo of her, then displays a slightly smaller photo of her and some pictures of jewelry. It scores a 295. Some sites are cared for a little more than others.
Every Cent Counts
The enterprising young Donald J. Trump, Jr. recognizes an opportunity when he sees one and has been collecting the valuable ad clicks of randos typing his name into their address bars for a while now, amassing a fortune of three, maybe four dollars. No, this isn’t the work of a squatter — The Trump Organization definitely owns this domain:
Conclusion
In looking at the domains it buys and the sites it runs, it would appear the Trump Organization is awash in half-baked impulses, poor management, little-to-no planning and is more concerned with its own vanity than any sort of substance or quality. In other words, it’s par for the course.
Header adapted from photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
