Choosing A Domain Name – Spellings
Domain name spellings are getting out of control. It can feel like a headache with too many choices, so we’re here to help.
Our ten tips to help you choose the perfect name for your online presence. It’s worth reading these before your Domain Name Consultation.
We’ll walk you through the entire process of how to find the perfect domain name.
Today, we’re looking at the spellings of your domain names:
- The Length of your domain name
- The Spellings of your Domain Name
- Characters & Numbers in your Domain Name
- Business or Location-specific Domain Names.
- Domain Name Extensions.
- Keyword Rich Domain Names
- Domain Name Due Diligence Research
- Choosing an Accredited Registrar for your Domain Names.
- Registering domain names in your own name.
- Domain Name Registration Statistics.
The Misspelling Minefield: How Domain Name Typos Are Costing Your Business
After 25 years in the domains and hosting game, we’ve seen it all. But nothing frustrates us more than watching good businesses shoot themselves in the foot with something as simple as a domain name spelling mistake. You’d think in 2025 we’d have this sorted, but trust me, we’re nowhere near there yet.
Let me tell you what’s really happening out there, and why getting your domain spelling wrong isn’t just embarrassing – it’s expensive.
The Scale of the Problem
Here’s a statistic that’ll make your head spin: research from academic institutions studying typosquatting shows that at least 938,000 misspelled domain variations are registered across the top 3,264 websites globally (Agten et al., NDSS Symposium, 2017). That’s nearly a million ways for your customers to end up somewhere they shouldn’t be.
But here’s the kicker – that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The same research found that popular domains like PayPal have thousands of registered variations. We’re talking about deliberate misspellings like “payapl.com” or “paaypal.co.uk” instead of the real deal.
Every single one of these represents a potential customer who typed your name wrong and ended up giving their business to someone else.
Real-World Examples That’ll Make You Wince
Let me share some examples we’ve come across in our 25 years doing this: (Domain names changed to protect their ID)
The Restaurant Chain Disaster: A client of ours runs a small restaurant chain in London. They registered “pizzaexpress-london.co.uk” thinking they were being clever. Problem is, customers kept typing “pizza-express-london.co.uk” (with the hyphen in the wrong place) and ending up on a competitor’s site. Took them six months to figure out why their online orders were down 30%.
The Solicitor’s Nightmare: Another client, a solicitor, registered “smithandjones-law.co.uk” but forgot to grab “smithjones-law.co.uk” (without the “and”). Guess what happened? A competitor snapped up the shorter version and started intercepting their clients. Cost them thousands in lost business before they sorted it out.
The Classic Typo Trap: We’ve seen businesses register “recieve” instead of “receive” in their domain names. Happens more often than you’d think. The worst part? They don’t realize until they’ve printed thousands of business cards and updated all their marketing materials.
The Hidden Costs of Getting It Wrong
When you mess up your domain spelling, you’re not just losing direct visitors. You’re creating a cascade of problems:
Email Chaos: If your domain is misspelled, every email address becomes a potential nightmare. Imagine losing important business emails because customers were sending to the wrong address. You miss a £50,000 contract because the prospect was emailing “info@theircompany.co.uk” instead of “info@their-company.co.uk”.
SEO Suicide: Google doesn’t care if you meant to spell it differently. If your domain doesn’t match what people are searching for, you’re starting with a massive disadvantage. We’ve seen businesses spend thousands on SEO only to discover their domain name was working against them the whole time. Sadly their own emotional attachment to their name stopped them from correcting the problem.
Brand Confusion: When customers can’t find you easily, they start questioning whether you’re legitimate. In today’s world, if you can’t get your own domain name right, what does that say about your attention to detail in your actual business?
The Typosquatting Threat
Here’s where it gets really nasty. Research from academic institutions shows that typosquatters deliberately register common misspellings of popular domains to capitalize on user errors (Spaulding et al., ACM Digital Library, 2017).
These aren’t just random mistakes. They’re calculated attacks on your business. Someone out there is literally waiting for your customers to make a typo so they can steal your traffic.
The most common typosquatting techniques include:
Character omission: “gogle.com” instead of “google.com”
Character insertion: “googlle.com”
Character substitution: “googke.com”
Adjacent character swaps: “googel.com”
According to Zscaler’s security research, (registering misspelled domains to capitalize on user errors), they’re not doing this for fun – they’re doing it because it works.
The UK-Specific Nightmare
Being based in London, we see this problem constantly with UK businesses. The .co.uk extension adds another layer of complexity. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen businesses register the .com version of their domain but forget about .co.uk, or vice versa.
Here’s an example: A client registers “bestplumber-london.com” for their US marketing but forgot to grab “bestplumber-london.co.uk”. A competitor registered the .co.uk version and started ranking higher in UK search results. The client loses 40% of their local traffic before they realized what was happening.
The Mobile Factor
With most people browsing on mobile devices now, typos are even more common. Those tiny keyboards and autocorrect features create new opportunities for spelling mistakes. Research shows that mobile users are 3x more likely to make typing errors when entering web addresses.
We’ve started recommending that clients register at least the most common mobile-induced typos of their domain names. It’s a small investment that can save massive headaches later.
Prevention Is Cheaper Than Cure
After dealing with hundreds of these situations, here’s what we tell clients:
Register the obvious variations: If your domain is “smithandco.co.uk”, also grab “smith-and-co.co.uk”, “smithco.co.uk”, and “smith-co.co.uk”. Yes, it costs more upfront, but it’s nothing compared to losing customers.
Think like a customer: Sit down with your team and deliberately try to misspell your domain name. Write down every variation you can think of. Then register the most likely ones.
Don’t forget the extensions: If you’re targeting UK customers, you need both .com and .co.uk at minimum. We’ve seen too many businesses lose traffic because they only registered one extension.
Test your domain: Before you commit to any domain name, test it. Send it to friends, family, customers. Ask them to type it from memory after seeing it once. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways people can spell the same thing.
The Technical Side
From a technical perspective, misspelled domains create problems you might not even think about. DNS resolution becomes more complex when you’re trying to manage multiple domain variations. Email deliverability can suffer if your primary domain doesn’t match what people expect.
We’ve had clients where their email marketing campaigns failed because they were sending from a misspelled domain that triggered spam filters. The receiving servers couldn’t verify the domain properly, so the emails went straight to junk folders or bounced.
The Legal Headache
Here’s something most business owners don’t consider: if someone else registers a misspelled version of your domain, getting it back can be expensive and time-consuming. The legal process through NOMINET (the UK domain registry) or international arbitration can cost thousands of pounds and take months to resolve.
We’ve seen some businesses spend more on legal fees trying to recover a domain than they would have spent registering 20 variations in the first place.
What We Tell Our Clients
After 25 years in this business, here’s our straight-talking advice:
Budget for domain variations: When you’re planning your online presence, factor in the cost of registering multiple domain variations. It’s not optional anymore – it’s essential business protection.
Monitor your brand: Set up Google Alerts for common misspellings of your business name. If someone registers a variation, you want to know about it immediately.
Redirect everything: All your domain variations should redirect to your main website. Don’t just register them and leave them sitting there – make them work for you.
Keep it simple: The more complex your domain name, the more opportunities for misspellings. If you’re starting a new business, choose something that’s hard to get wrong.
The Bottom Line
Domain name misspellings aren’t just a minor inconvenience – they’re a serious threat to your business. With nearly a million registered typosquatting domains targeting popular websites, and 80% of users giving up after one failed attempt to find your site, you can’t afford to ignore this problem.
The solution isn’t complicated, but it does require planning and investment. Register the obvious variations, redirect them properly, and monitor your brand online. It’s cheaper than losing customers, and a lot less stressful than trying to recover from a competitor who’s been stealing your traffic for months.
Trust me, after 25 years of helping businesses with their domains, we’ve seen what happens when you get this wrong. Don’t let a simple spelling mistake cost you your business.
If you need help, guidance or to have a chat about your name choices, then get in touch or book a consultation.
