Typosquatting
Discussion
The typos examined in the data set were broken down into eight overarching categories to create a uniform method for analysis. Each individual category contains variation in specific mistakes, but the groups provide a basic illustration of the most common types of mistakes.
- Wrong TLD – refers to those users who enter the wrong top-level domain (TLD), such as dot-COM instead of dot-ORG.
- Wrong Letter – refers to those users who type a wrong letter, such as myspsce.com
- Repeated Letter – refers to those users who repeat a letter, such as faceboook.com
- Extra Letter – similar to repeated letter, except that the incorrect letter (or number) is not repeated, but typically within one key of the correct letter that precedes or follows it within the domain
- Missing Letter – refers to those users who dropped a character from the domain name, such as myspac.com
- Missing dot – refers to dropping a dot (“.”) in the domain name, such as wwwmyspace.com
- Letter Swap – refers to transposing two letters, such as wellfsargo.com
- Extra Character – includes the typos that incorrectly contain an extra non-letter character, such as adding a hyphen in biz-rate.com
Out of 3,000 categorized typo domains, the mistakes represented in Figure 1 were the most common:
Figure 1: Most Common Typo Mistakes [+]
In addition to these general categories, this test was also able to identify more specific mistakes made by users. Figure 2 details the most popular typos. The percentages in Figure 2 were calculated based on the total number of misspellings and keystroke mistakes present in our data set; the number of misspellings and keystroke mistakes is a subset of the 3,000 highest trafficked typo domains that does not include use of the wrong TLD. These specific mistakes are the most important for businesses to be aware of when examining a brand’s level of exposure to typosquatting.
Figure 2
| Typo Mistake | Percent of Total Typos |
|---|---|
| extra letter: s | 3.47% |
| missing dot | 3.19% |
| extra letter: r | 2.44% |
| extra letter: e | 2.30% |
| missing letter: s | 2.10% |
| missing letter: e | 2.10% |
| extra letter: w | 1.92% |
| missing letter: i | 1.79% |
| extra letter: i | 1.72% |
| extra letter: o | 1.55% |
By taking the number of typo domains identified for a target site and comparing this number to the target site’s traffic, we hoped to determine if typosquatters register domains based on site traffic or on other principles. Our analysis seems to support our hypothesis that site traffic is related to how many typo domains will be registered for a target site. As can be seen in Figure 3, the data suggests that most target sites with significant traffic have a range of 100 to 200 typo domains siphoning traffic and the overall data demonstrates a positive relationship between traffic and the number of typo names.
Figure 3: Relationship Between Target Site Traffic and Number of Existing Typo Domains [+]
These findings demonstrate that typosquatting utilizes a research-based method– the same method that can be used to understand behavior of a brand’s online consumers. Registering any and all typo domain names is not the most effective strategy for brand owners to employ when trying to combat typosquatting. Establishing strategic principles to determine which names are most harmful to a brand should be a priority when developing a targeted approach to registration and enforcement. An effective strategy will not look to completely eliminate typosquatting, but will seek to minimize its effects and maximize capitalization of brand assets thereby accounting for the growing user behavior of unintentional “Typo Navigation.”
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