Are you at risk of domain typos?
Do you know how much traffic you could be missing out on when customers mistype your web site address? Misspelt and mistyped domain names can be a risk to your website and impact traffic to your online business.
Securing typos, misspellings and common abbreviations of your existing domain name can help capture lost visitors and defend against competitors picking up your traffic, or worse, your customers. Simply redirect the variations to your main web site address.
Here are some considerations to make sure your web site is bringing you as much business as possible.
1. Proper names and geographic names like marlbouoghhotels.com.au
There are certain words in the English language that people tend to misspell. So it may be worthwhile to do your research to make sure yours is not the one customers will tend to get wrong. Also proper names like names of cities, countries, states and company names tend to be misspelled because they are not often used in daily language.
Just remember that if you are registering a proper name or a name with a geographic focus as your website address, this name may not be as familiar to other people as it is to you.
2. Combinations of generic domain names like homeentertainment.com.au
If your domain name is composed of two or more generic words, be aware that the correct spelling may not always be obvious or easy to remember.
Try to avoid double vowels or consonants like homeentertainment.com.au/ homentertainment.com.au or weddingsshoes.com.au / weddingshoes.com.au.
Consider also singular and plural versions like petgrooming.com.au / petsgrooming.com.au.
3. With or without hyphens like my-shop.com.au or myshop.com.au
Hyphenated domain names can be quite tricky to remember. The no-hyphen version of your website address is the recommended version, so try to register it if you can.
4. Names with “com” or “com.au” like traffic.com or traffic.com.au
Undoubtedly one of the most obvious errors when browsing the internet is mixing up the domain name extension. The most common Australian domain extensions are .com.au and .net.au. Often website managers secure both domain versions and redirect all traffic to the same website. Globally, .com is the most popular and, regardless of whether your website is targeted at an international audience, you should always consider securing the .com version of your website address, if available.
5. Abbreviations and acronyms such as jsdf.org.au instead of jdsf.org.au
Unless you run a very well known brand (locally or internationally) you should consider avoiding acronyms. For example, if your business is called Jenny Smith Discount Flowers, the acronym jsdf.com.au may not be the best option. It is harder to remember acronyms than meaningful words.
Research highlights risks around typo-squatting
In 2001, Marc Schneider published interesting research findings in this field. He registered the domain name ‘jptmail.com’, which is very close to ‘hotmail.com’ (the ‘j’ and ‘p’ key are situated next to ‘h’ and ‘o’ on the keyboard) to calculate the level of traffic and emails he could capture from Hotmail account users.
Although ‘jptmail.com’ is not ideal as users would have to make two mistakes while typing ‘hotmail’ (hit ‘j’ and ‘p’ instead of ‘h’ and ”o’) Mr Schneider was still able to capture over 3000 visitors in one year.
He then calculated that an address with just one error could generate up to ten times the traffic.
For emails, the strategy is very simple, all typosquatters have to do is set up a ‘catch-all’ email account to redirect all messages to their inbox and focus on large traffic websites.
Common typing errors on some well-known brands:
Google: googel.com
Microsoft: microsofr.com
Hotmail: hotmial.com
Cathay Pacific: cahtaypacific.com
Amazon: amzon.com
Expert advice. Melbourne IT provides free advice and phone support for all domain registrations.
If you feel your website may be at risk of missing out on valuable traffic and to understand how this approach could help maximise your online presence, contact our e-Business Consultants on 1300 793 248.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
yes ,that is true ..there is a hrsports overseas that gets my orders
July 20th, 2007 at 11:02 am
THANKS GOOD INFO
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I found your article very informative and interesting. Thanks for sending it