Misspelled Domains – New Trend in Social Media
KnowEm, Flickr, SoKule, Klout, ProSkore, XeeMe – can you tell me what do these sites have in common? Sure, they all fill the void in social media management providing useful tools to facilitate various aspects of your social media marketing efforts. I am not going to talk about their features and benefits in this post, this is a topic for another article.
Right now I want you to take a close look at their spelling. Did you notice anything odd? Yes, they all have misspelled keywords as their domain names. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the correct corresponding keyword-rich domains would be KnowThem.com, SoCool.com, Clout.com, ProScore.com and SeeMe.com. These are just a few of the sites in the long list of popular online social tools that have misspelled keywords in their domain.
It looks like misspelled social media-related domains is the newest social trend, and not the best one, I might add.
Misspelled Domains and Typo Squatting
There is nothing new in picking up misspelled domains, it’s an old traffic-generation strategy that lies somewhere on the border between black hat and grey hat (depending on the utilization of landing pages of those misspelled domains).
Usually it’s used as a form of cyber squatting (known as typo squatting). In short, marketers and hackers buy domains containing misspelled versions of popular sites. People make spelling mistakes every day. And they rarely notice it, especially if a site they arrive on after that is an exact replica of original site.
Depending on a misspelling, the traffic could be huge. I can’t even tell you how many domains with misspelled versions of “google” are out there. Marketers use such domains to sell their products. Hackers use them for identity theft (I told you it’s not a white hat approach).
Social Squatting – a New wave of Cyber Squatting
The newer wave of name squatting can be observed in social networks. Social influencers (social network users with tens of thousands followers) enjoy huge traffic to their hubs. So it was only a matter of time before misspelled versions of social influencers’ usernames would spread like a wildfire. I suggest a name of social squatting for this tactic.
How to Protect Your Brand from Social CopyCats
By the way, if you have a substantial social following, you might want to register your username on all social networks as soon as possible. Or some copycats will do it and ride the wave of your brand’s popularity.
If your time is limited, easiest way to protect your brand is to order brand protection service from KnowEm, they will register your usernames on over 550 various social networks.
Are Misspelled Domains Good for Branding?
So using misspelled domains for grey-ish purposes is nothing new. But it surprises me that popular social utilities deliberately choose misspelled keywords for their businesses.
Yes, I know it’s hard to register the relevant short keyword-rich domain these days. It seems like they all were bought a long time ago. But do you really think it’s justified to pick up a misspelled domain?
Think about it. If name squatting works very well then the opposite is also true. In other words, many people will type the “correct” version of your domain… only to end up on some other site.
And since percentage of typos is smaller than percent of correctly typed names, you willingly give away a lion share of your typed traffic right from the start.
Sure, now klout is a well-known brand, so not as many people make a mistake while typing this domain. Yet while they were climbing the ladder, they probably lost hundreds of thousands visitors who used a “correct” spelling of their keyword (clout).
A Real Life Example of Misspellings in Action
Here is a little story that made me right this post. One of my twitter followers asked me which online tools for social reputation management I could recommend. Among other tools I mentioned Proskore. The problem was that when I tweeted, I typed it as a “ProScore” which is obviously the correct spelling for this keyword. And that tweet went to all my 65,000 followers. Which means ProSkore missed a potential of substantial exposure to the earned media that could be generated from my tweet.
So if you’re planning to pick up a misspelled domain for your business – think about it –is it really worth it? Or should you buy a keyword-rich domain on a secondary market? Or should you look for a little longer domain name which includes a correctly spelled targeted keyword?
How to Minimize Brand Damage from Misspelled Domains
If you already bought a misspelled domain and started building your brand around it, don’t despair. Linguistics are important but there are ways to mitigate the negative influence of misspelled keywords by tying the semantic perception of your recipients with audio and visual anchors.
In one of the previous posts I reviewed one possible solution for this problem that was implemented by Sokule. Mascot, anyone?
Of course it’s not that easy to develop the right blend of semantic, audio and video experiences for a successful anchor with the right branding message.
So my advice – use it only if you’re already deeply involved in building your brand around the misspelled domain. Otherwise just pick the correct domain from the get go.
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Opening image from sixesandsevens on Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.
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