I have an idea for an e-commerce domain that involves a slightly misspelt variation of my main keyword. A few examples (that might not make any sense but give an idea of the type of worldplay involved):
Can’t think of any examples but I’m sure I’ve seen these “double R” endings before in quite popular apps or websites. It would be a 5 letter .com and is for sale for a few 100 dollars, now I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth it. I’m operating on tight margins and a limited budget. I asked a friend who said “sounds like a scam”, I don’t really agree …
Using the term “misspelt” was wrong of me - I’m absolutely not trying to capitalise on people’s mistakes. Quite a few sites now use misspellings, Flickr, Fiverr, etc …
That’s just how they want to spell their company out.
We were under the assumption that you would try and make a name based off a company like YouPorn (purely an example). Your misspelt domain would be something like “YouPron” or something where you could get views off of misspellings.
Misspelled domains like Flickr is completely fine as long as you aren’t treading on another companies toes like the above example.
Misspelled brand/domain names come across at best as cutesy/childish, and at worst as illiterate.
Neither is a great strategy.
Personally I’d try to create a brand that sounds professional and not like it targets 8 year old girls - unless you are indeed targeting 8 year old girls!
I don’t see anything wrong in misspelled domain as long as your content contain relevancy on people searching your product. Likewise, if search engine bot see your site as relevant to the searcher then you don’t have to worry. It might be more noticeable by search engine bots and might be great source of traffic.
I agree with some of the above - if it’s a “misspelling” that is an intentional brand name and not intended to poach others, then whatever. It’s certainly not unprofessional to have a made-up or misspelled word as a name, as many of the top companies in today’s economy have weird names. Where it’s going to be dumb is if you’re trying to poach views, or if it’s just a… bad misspelling.
Flickr came across to people, apparently, as not bad. If you wanted to name a resteraunt Eatinz, people might accept that. Naming a distributing company Distrbtr would just be… annoying. I think to some extent it’s common sense, to another extent it matters what you’re offering. If the site/app is something that catches on, the name will stick
At the time, “Google” seemed like a bit of a goofy company name
swimmerr.com or swimr.com for selling swimming gear would be the best example of what I’m considering. It’s absolutely not a brand name or anything like that.
Just have to decide if it’s worth the 350USD that it’s being sold for.
I would only consider swimr. Reminds me of flickr.
I’m not sure whether it’s worth 350 though, but it’s not my call.
Perhaps consider haggling.
I agree with Ryan, here. I like that one out of the others, and it’s the least “misspelled” seeming. A thought - how successful do you think this will really be? If it’ll be a big money maker for you, what’s $350 for a startup cost? If it’s a big gamble that may not do much… why spend $350? It all depends on the situation.
Personally, I’d try to be more creative before giving in to the domain squatters (thieves that they are!) I bet that you can come up with something more catchy and original than just adding in a few extra consonants. It can work, such as dribbble.com, but it’s not for me.
Think of a site like CodePen.com—a place for posting code demos. It’s a creative, memorable name. They could have just used something like coderrr.com, but how boring would that have been?
Lots of things spring to mind straight away—like SwimTogs, SplashWear, h2oGear, SwimKit and so on. I’m sure you could think of something better!
