Optimising for misspellings in Google

[ubermensche]

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Hi All,

I have just put a new site up on a .org.uk with the domain name being a misspelling of the product group that I will be selling. The correct spelling gets about a quarter of the search volume locally so this seemed like a no brainer as the misspelling is simply dropping one letter (e.g. "chese" instead of "cheese")

Unfortunately Google corrects the spelling for user and then suggests the two top hits for the correct spelling ABOVE the rest of the results - which means that position 1 for the term is actually position 3.

I am only about 2 weeks into building/linking to the site and am sitting at 6 (or 8 depending on if you count the suggestions!) on the 1st page - and am having trouble deciding to optimise for the correct spelling or the misspelling.

Any thoughts, experiences or gut feel would be very welcome!

[moredial]

Hi All,
Any thoughts, experiences or gut feel would be very welcome!

As you already have the benefit of the misspelling in the domain name you are not going to get any more benefit by adding more poor language to your site. Go for the correct spelling and a site which looks professional. After all, given the option of 2 sites with the same prices (something all affiliates suffer) would you prefer to do business with the site that looks like it was put together by an uneducated kid or a professional business?

Unless your target market is the uneducated kid in which case there are certain benefits in spellings that make sense to him.

[JohnnyCash]

Hi All,

I have just put a new site up on a .org.uk with the domain name being a misspelling of the product group that I will be selling. The correct spelling gets about a quarter of the search volume locally so this seemed like a no brainer as the misspelling is simply dropping one letter (e.g. "chese" instead of "cheese")

Unfortunately Google corrects the spelling for user and then suggests the two top hits for the correct spelling ABOVE the rest of the results - which means that position 1 for the term is actually position 3.

I am only about 2 weeks into building/linking to the site and am sitting at 6 (or 8 depending on if you count the suggestions!) on the 1st page - and am having trouble deciding to optimise for the correct spelling or the misspelling.

Any thoughts, experiences or gut feel would be very welcome!

You aren't going to get any typein traffic to a typo .org.uk. It seems pointless to try and optimise for the correct spelling if you have a typo in the domain. If Google is already correcting "chese" to "cheese" in that search result, you are never going to get in the top two. The big "did you mean..." from Google is going to ruin any chance of getting clicks in 3rd.

I'd move any content you've put on this domain to another site with the real spelling and start optimising that instead. Its a fools game working on typos, Google is only going to get better and better at detecting them and directing people to the correct versions. I wouldn't waste time and resources on something like this.

[ubermensche]

Thank you both for your replies,

@moredial - unfortunately the misspelling perpetuates much larger and more professional sites than mine, hence the reason I went down this road in the first place. It is a spelling that I think a large part of the audience would not notice it being misspelt - which I guess is why the search volumes for the wrong spelling are so much larger than the correct word.

@JohnnyCash - I agree that there will be no direct traffic (though I hadn't thought of this before about .org.uk domains) - and I concede I didn't notice the "did you mean..." until after I had started the site. Once it had been indexed and I searched for it, I had a "doesn't that mean that it will never appear at the....oh dear" moment. So perhaps this is just a mistake to learn from and move on!

[moredial]

You can't necessarily trust the search volumes on any word. A lot of searches are performed by scripts that are looking for ranking positions and are not made by humans. Popular searches often need to be discounted by about 60% to remove this effect.

On the other hand, if the target market keeps getting the word wrong there are benefits in having a few wrong versions on your site. For example, how many people don't know whether vodafone or vodaphone is correct?

[JohnnyCash]

You can't necessarily trust the search volumes on any word. A lot of searches are performed by scripts that are looking for ranking positions and are not made by humans. Popular searches often need to be discounted by about 60% to remove this effect.?

Sounds like that 60% figure is something you just made up for the sake of posting (again).

On the other hand, if the target market keeps getting the word wrong there are benefits in having a few wrong versions on your site. For example, how many people don't know whether vodafone or vodaphone is correct?

vodaphone - Google Search

An auto correct on that result, the first result has site links and the first 8 results all belong to official Vodafone sites and Blackberry. So the best you can hope for is 9th, and people are going to be poisoned off with the big "did you mean..." Completely pointless to try and rank for a typo of that phrase.

[moredial]

Sounds like that 60% figure is something you just made up for the sake of posting (again).

What is it with you? Instead of trashing my comments when you don't have the same level of knowledge I have, why don't you do your own research.

The actual figure, for your information, came from the sys admin for a search engine site based on log analysis and is actually higher than that figure. I admit to reducing the figure because even I find it difficult to believe it could be so high, even though so many SEO services include daily ranking reports amongst their services.

[JohnnyCash]

Well instead of just pulling a figure out of thin air why not post where it came from? You further reduce any validity it had by admitting you changed it just because you didn't like the look of it lol.