mis-spelled keyword domains

Diceicle

Not sure if this is the correct part of the tech forum to post in but here goes:

What is the situation in purchasing mis-typed keyword domains. Whats I mean is, would buying and developing a site, under the domain of www.apleipad.com , get me the traffic associated with people who mis-type apple ipad or will Google circumvent that by just showing the results for the phase 'Apple Ipad' anyway?

jmcc

Diceicle wrote: »

Not sure if this is the correct part of the tech forum to post in but here goes:

What is the situation in purchasing mis-typed keyword domains. Whats I mean is, would buying and developing a site, under the domain of www.apleipad.com , get me the traffic associated with people who mis-type apple ipad or will Google circumvent that by just showing the results for the phase 'Apple Ipad' anyway?

It might get you traffic (typein rather than search engine) but it may also get you a WIPO action from Apple or the trademark owner to get the domain off of you. It really isn't the best way of developing a sustainable business.

Regards...jmcc

Diceicle

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure what WIPO is but it doesnt sound positive. I wouldnt be thinking of that exact domain. But what about a more general term, for instance, instead of someone typing mixed martial arts you buy the domain mxedmartialarts.com (which for the sake of argument gets 20,000 hits a month) will that domain capture those 20,000 or would googles spellchecker circumvent that?

cormee

Don't waste your time - I bought www.twittfr.com to see what sort of traffic a misspelled domain name gets. I'd say it got about 250 visits over the year I owned it.

There's also the matter of trust/reputation, not many people would purchase a product or service from a site that uses questionable tactics like that to attract customers.

Google's spell checker wouldn't come into the equation if the user is typing the address directly into the address bar.

mneylon

Some domains do get typo traffic. Some domainers specialise in them and make quite a nice living from it (or used to)

If you're going to do it avoid trademarks - either you'll lose the domain via a UDRP or you'll get sued or both

Diceicle

Thanks for the info Blacknight. The site I'm thinking of developing wouldn't be a trademark issue as its more a general term mis-type. It would / will be a legit site, fully-developed etc, I'm just looking to maximize potential traffic availability.

link8r

If it's a generic word (non-Trademark etc) then it may work but just remember that Google (and Bing) does 2 things really well:

1. It associates miss-spelt words with domains already - and it does a very good job. Misspelling accommodation as accomodation was a handy trick 8 years ago. Once a domain has that association, it can be hard to shift. It does the same with punctuation/characters like "e" and "è" for example or "optimisation" and "optimization"

2. Ultimately Google picks the most relevant site with the most authority (overall: association) with that phrase. Therefore, if your site is trying to capture people looking for say, "Webcam.com" with "webkam.com" but your site is seen as an Irish or UK site and the search visitor is in the USA - then the lack of GEO-target relvance/association will automatically hold you back anyway. The days of a domain being seen as relevant/associated to more than 1/2 countries are numbered

cormee

Regardless of legality etc. this is a dreadful way to go about building a brand/site. You're basically attempting to redirect traffic meant for another site to yours by capitalising on user errors.

Regardless of how you try to justify it you're using underhanded tactics to get traffic and no one is going to trust a site that does that.

Try build your own brand, provide useful content, build links, gain reputation, don't leech off another site's hard work to attract traffic.

mneylon

link8r wrote: »

If it's a generic word (non-Trademark etc) then it may work but just remember that Google (and Bing) does 2 things really well:

1. It associates miss-spelt words with domains already - and it does a very good job. Misspelling accommodation as accomodation was a handy trick 8 years ago. Once a domain has that association, it can be hard to shift. It does the same with punctuation/characters like "e" and "è" for example or "optimisation" and "optimization"

2. Ultimately Google picks the most relevant site with the most authority (overall: association) with that phrase. Therefore, if your site is trying to capture people looking for say, "Webcam.com" with "webkam.com" but your site is seen as an Irish or UK site and the search visitor is in the USA - then the lack of GEO-target relvance/association will automatically hold you back anyway. The days of a domain being seen as relevant/associated to more than 1/2 countries are numbered

That's all irrelevant
He's talking about getting typo traffic

Diceicle

cormee wrote: »

Regardless of legality etc. this is a dreadful way to go about building a brand/site. You're basically attempting to redirect traffic meant for another site to yours by capitalising on user errors.

Regardless of how you try to justify it you're using underhanded tactics to get traffic and no one is going to trust a site that does that.

Try build your own brand, provide useful content, build links, gain reputation, don't leech off another site's hard work to attract traffic.

I think this is a little harsh in as far as I'm concerned I wouldn't be concentrating on a trademarked item or idea (like www.apleipad.com). If someone chooses to utilise existing traffic for a keyword then this is fair game as long as the site they develop is a worthy site, no? Taking the example of mixed martial arts vs MXed martial arts, mxed martial arts gets 135,000 'hits' a month in google, if someone chooses to buy mxedmartialarts.com (which someone has though not me) and develops a site dedicated to martial arts with original content, then whats wrong with that?

link8r

Good points from Blacknight.

Building a website is not neccessarily about building a brand. In fact, it's very often not about building a brand. And it doesn't need to be.

cormee

Diceicle wrote: »

I think this is a little harsh in as far as I'm concerned I wouldn't be concentrating on a trademarked item or idea (like www.apleipad.com). If someone chooses to utilise existing traffic for a keyword then this is fair game as long as the site they develop is a worthy site, no? Taking the example of mixed martial arts vs MXed martial arts, mxed martial arts gets 135,000 'hits' a month in google, if someone chooses to buy mxedmartialarts.com (which someone has though not me) and develops a site dedicated to martial arts with original content, then whats wrong with that?

You need to learn how to use Google's Keyword Tool - You're doing a broad search, that is a very loose match that incorporates similar phrases and relevant variations. [mxd martial arts] ,an exact search, gets less than ten global searches per month.

As I said in an earlier post I owned twittfr.com for a year and it got about 250 visits. If a site as popular as Twitter, which gets 18 million plus visitors per day, only generates 250 misspellings of 'twittfr' per year you've very little hope of finding a quick route to endless traffic.

Domainers generate most of their profit from lapsed domains not typo traffic.

@ link8r - can you give me an example of a popular commercial site that doesn't have a brand of some kind, or an example of a site that specifically doesn't try to establish a brand?

mneylon

cormee wrote: »

As I said in an earlier post I owned twittfr.com for a year and it got about 250 visits. If a site as popular as Twitter, which gets 18 million plus visitors per day, only generates 250 misspellings of 'twittfr' per year you've very little hope of finding a quick route to endless traffic.

I don't see why you'd have expected to get traffic for a non-obvious typo.
The keys "F" and "E" aren't even that close on the keyboard

cormee

Blacknight wrote: »

I don't see why you'd have expected to get traffic for a non-obvious typo.
The keys "F" and "E" aren't even that close on the keyboard

They're touching on mine! Corners, but still touching.

mneylon

cormee wrote: »

They're touching on mine! Corners, but still touching.

ROFL

Ok so

link8r

cormee wrote: »

@ link8r - can you give me an example of a popular commercial site that doesn't have a brand of some kind, or an example of a site that specifically doesn't try to establish a brand?

Where did "popular commercial site" come from - @OP's question was about getting traffic from typo's / incorrect spellings - not from building a brand!

There are many sites, some affiliates for example, that sell ebooks and other affiliate type products that aren't trying to build a brand.

At the risk of running off thread - many people think they're building a brand but they're often just selling a second/third place runner at a lower price with similar quality.

Many consumers are brand blind in some aspects of what they buy, often seeing higher cost brands as just a higher cost for the same thing because of a brand. A lot of what brand-orientated marketeers toss out about brand building isn't always true.

(coming back on thread) Search Engine Marketing highlights this really well - if people are searching for your brand, you'll probably be easily found. Much of SEM centres around generic searches - so people aren't searching for a brand (or haven't found one or want a new one). Many decisions (like those made in IT) are based on performance, specification, community rating - not solely on brands.

cormee

link8r wrote: »

Where did "popular commercial site" come from - @OP's question was about getting traffic from typo's / incorrect spellings - not from building a brand!

There are many sites, some affiliates for example, that sell ebooks and other affiliate type products that aren't trying to build a brand.

At the risk of running off thread - many people think they're building a brand but they're often just selling a second/third place runner at a lower price with similar quality.

Many consumers are brand blind in some aspects of what they buy, often seeing higher cost brands as just a higher cost for the same thing because of a brand. A lot of what brand-orientated marketeers toss out about brand building isn't always true.

(coming back on thread) Search Engine Marketing highlights this really well - if people are searching for your brand, you'll probably be easily found. Much of SEM centres around generic searches - so people aren't searching for a brand (or haven't found one or want a new one). Many decisions (like those made in IT) are based on performance, specification, community rating - not solely on brands.

"Popular commercial sites" was in reply to your posting that stated that many sites are specifically looking not to establish a brand. "Building a website is not necessarily about building a brand. In fact, it's very often not about building a brand. And it doesn't need to be. "

Regarding affiliate sites not having a brand - I'm not talking about a site selling branded products, I'm talking about a site's distinct identity, which is considered a brand. As much as I hate quoting Wikipedia, here goes: "A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business[1][page needed]. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan." If a site uses any distinct combination of colours/fonts it has a brand.

Anyway this is all off topic so I'll shut up now...

link8r

cormee wrote: »

"Popular commercial sites" was in reply to your posting that stated that many sites are specifically looking not to establish a brand. "Building a website is not necessarily about building a brand. In fact, it's very often not about building a brand. And it doesn't need to be. "

Regarding affiliate sites not having a brand - I'm not talking about a site selling branded products, I'm talking about a site's distinct identity, which is considered a brand. As much as I hate quoting Wikipedia, here goes: "A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business[1][page needed]. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan." If a site uses any distinct combination of colours/fonts it has a brand.

Anyway this is all off topic so I'll shut up now...

I said many sites of different types - you asked for "popular commercial sites". If I'd said many cars in Ireland had an engine size of 1.4l and you asked me to name examples of popular buses with 1.4l I couldn't...

I understand what a brand is and what you meant. What I said still stands - not every commercial website is trying to build a brand...