Should I Buy Typo Domains?

Recently, I’ve been browsing a few sites and many people ask a similar question; should I buy “typo” domains, or not?

Section I: Introduction

For the few of you unfamiliar with the phrase “typo domain,” it is an abbreviation for a typographical error, for example spelling “copmuter” instead of “computer.” Therefore, a “typo domain” is a domain name that will be visited via somebody making a typing error, such as “www.goolge.com” (which is actually, smartly, registered to google).

The difference between typosquatting and domain selling are quite large. To define typosquatting briefly, someone creates a domain meant to attract people based on a typo somebody else makes. Typosquatting is meant for personal benefit of the person, usually redirecting people from the typo domain to a different website containing various content (ranging from spyware to actually informative sites), that sometimes closely resemble the site using a similar logo and template.

On the other hand, typo domain selling is based on either selling the domain to the “company” to which the original, properly spelled domain belongs to (for example, www.verzon.com, which redirected to a site containing pornography and spyware, sold for $50,000 dollars to Verizon Inc.) or maybe selling the domain for a cheaper price to somebody interested in expanding the domain (hoping to typosquat the domain themselves). It is important to understand which of the above 2 options you hope to pursue. I will give some tips on how to choose which one in a bit.

Also, if you are interested in the long run and don’t want to either typosquat or sell the domain, you can actually park it yourself. Now while you won’t instantly be able to cash out or receive traffic to another of your sites, you should be able to make a fair amount of money in the long run.

Section II: Analyzing Different Types of Typo Domain Names

These domains are relatively cheap in price, ranging from $5 to $12 in price from services such as www.name.com. Generally, using a typo domain for a small increase in profit is not very difficult, especially if you are able to attract a small amount of “redirect” traffic, or people who actually stay on your site. However, the real difficulty comes from obtaining a good domain to work with.

Many incredible (or incredibly lucky) typos (that just leave me wishing that I had done this research a few years ago), such as wwwgoogle.com (missing a “.”) and www.hottmail.com (additional t added), get over 39,000 hits per day each. Both of those domains are parked. However, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other typo domains getting between 500 - 10k hits a day, each of which have a MUCH higher re-sell value than they were bought for.

In a recent study, about 40 of the top 200 parked typo domains are making substantial money via Google Adsense or other advertising opportunities. This doesn’t include re-selling or re-directing viewers, but just from owning the site, the traffic is enough to make these advertising companies want to pay you money. Pretty much, this is an effort-free way that involves NO WORK and grosses a fair amount of money. People can milk these advertisers for a bit, and then choose to sell/typosquat the domain if they please.

However, getting to be in the top 200 typo-domains takes a lot of work. Odds are that people have already tried to find a typo for a website you want, and have parked/typosquatted these domains. This is especially true for .com names, such as (assuming example.com is the desired site) xample.com, examlpe.com, etc. are probably all parked. Don’t let this discourage you though, it is always worth a try.

Section IIIa: The Five [basic] Types of Typo Domains

1) The good ol’ mispelling domain, such as “www.BotsonCeltics.com” or “www.BostonCetlics.com” - these domains have a few pros, but larger cons. Many people instantly realize the typo they made, and will not even bother checking the website, as it just looks VERY wrong in the address bar. These will work better if you’re trying to attract little children, so maybe a typo like “www.Minilcip.com” or something will work, but I wouldn’t try it for a site mainly adults/teenagers use.

2) A different form of the word (either a plural/singular, tense, etc.), for example, instead of “www.student.com” a domain of “www.students.com” would be good. Or rather something like “www.played.com” instead of “www.play.com”; just something that would come from a misunderstanding from a friend, where somebody tells somebody else to check out a website but the person doesn’t quite hear it right. This works especially well for websites ending in the letter “t” if you want to make it plural, but it also works well in general. These are kind of easy to find, but their success rate might not be as high as desired. They are very good for re-directing traffic because the surfer will probably not realize the mistake they made at first.

3) An alternative spelling - this is predominantly for websites ending in an “s” or “z” and just flipping the two, such as “www.orbits.com” instead of “www.orbitz.com”. This can be good for many reasons, ranging from easy traffic from typos, as well as misunderstandings. If properly made, a site like this could attract a lot of traffic. This is very similar to the previous choice.

4) Changing the extension; for example - instead of “google.com” making it “google.org.” This is a pretty bad method in my opinion, for a few reason. First of all, many of the best online services (and up-and-coming ones, too) buy a package with .org and .net to prevent typosquatting. Also, who types google.org instead of google.com anyways? I guess it would be alright going from a different extension, like .net, to .com (for example, TalkPrice.net to TalkPrice.com), since some people might not type the extension at all. Overall, pretty bad though.

4) A missed period (hehe, excuse the pun), such as “wwwgoogle.com” or “www.googlecom.com”. These domains worked EXCEPTIONALLY well with Internet Explorer 5, which required you to type in the “www” prior to the domain. However, recently, many top browsers don’t require you to do this any more, and many people just type “google.com”, which makes the missed period after the 3rd “w” less effective now than previously (wwwgoogle.com is declining in hits per day nearly every day). On the other hand, websites such as “www.googlecom.com” or are becoming more and more popular, and will probably become more popular as time goes on. This is because more and more browsers will automatically redirect you to the “.com” name of a site, so typing “google” will now redirect you to “google.com” on some browsers. As the age of technology progresses, so will this feature - so I would DEFINITELY recommend grabbing a domain similar to “www.googlecom.com” as fast as possible, as they can definitely give you a lot of traffic. Many people won’t notice this error, so it can be squatted well.

5) A clipped domain, for example “www.googl.com” or “www.youtub.com”, etc. These are EXCELLENT finds, if you can get your hands on one. The majority of the best sites are already taken, but this is one of the most common typos, and this can be great for profit. I would recommend having a batch of 10-15 sites you want to try to find, and see if you can find a good clipped domain.

Section III: Choosing The “Typo Victim”

Equally, if not more important, than knowing how to make a good typo is knowing what to make the domain a typo of (the “victim”). Although it would be very nice to have a site like wwwgoogle.com or some other successful typosquatting site based on some extremely large website (top 10 in the Alexa ratings), it’s smarter to buy a site based on NEW and UPCOMING services that might strike it rich. Many services covered here may one day become great, and it’s like an investment - buy it when you can. You might find yourself down 50 dollars, but one day a site will skyrocket and there you go; a 10,000 dollar return. Check this blog often for new services, and try to snag typos of these sites if you are honestly interested. Try to be creative and think of how YOU might mistype it. Alternatively, just google Typo Domains and you’ll find many generators for possible typos (note these don’t give you the ‘missing period’ variety usually).

Section IV: The Final Decision - To Buy or Not?

Now that you know the basics of what type of typo domain to buy, let’s analyze whether or not to buy one at all.

It can all be thought of as a big gamble - either you win big, or you lose. Since you probably won’t strike it rich on your first, second, third, etc. domain, it will probably take many tries before you are able to find an extremely valuable one. Why not wait till you seemingly have found one of these? Well, the truth is, it can only come with experience. There’s NO real way of telling whether or not the typo domain will be a fluke or a breakthrough without experimenting with many different types. Sure, you can always cancel the monthly hosting fee if you are creating an actual website, not parking it, but that is pretty irrelevant. If you are an extremely patient person, willing to take many hits and failures for the chance at making minimal returns, then buying these domains is for you. If you are an extremely tech-savvy, insightful person who is not willing to take the time to make an actual website, go ahead and buy one. Hell, if you’re NOT someone who gets disappointed a lot losing out on 100 dollars before realistically making no profit, go ahead and buy one. You never know what you may find, and maybe you’ll find one that makes you a TON of profit, so experiment!