The Simple Mistakes That Are Costing You Customers
90 Million Annual Visitors to Top Retailers Diverted by Typos
Download the Full ArticleHoliday shopping season is coming to a close after a huge Black Friday and Cyber Monday kickoff. According to online analytics firm Coremetrics, online sales were up 19.4 percent this Cyber Monday over Cyber Monday 2009, and the average order value rose to $194.89 from $180.03 last year.1 But most impressively, this year marked the first time Cyber Monday sales exceeded a billion dollars, with retailers raking in a combined total of $1.028 billion.2
Given these trends, FairWinds Partners sought to identify opportunities for online retailers to maximize their online impact and increase the number of consumers they reach and minimize diversion, customer acquisition cost, and instances of phishing, malware deposit and other fraud that targets consumers seeking brands online. To do so, FairWinds conducted a study to identify how the top Internet retailers are affected by one character-off typographic variations of their domain names, and how they can approach reducing the brand damage that can come about as a result of these typo variations.
Internet users typically access content online in three ways. The first is through Direct Navigation, where users type a domain name directly into the browser’s address bar. The second two are through Search Navigation, either organic or paid. When a user types a term or phrase into a search engine, both organic and paid links appear. Organic links are those that are ranked by the search engine’s algorithm; paid links, or “sponsored links” as they often appear, are those that companies pay to have appear among search results.
Our study deals specifically with Direct Navigation, which studies have shown that 100 percent of Internet users practice as part of their online navigating behavior.3 In fact, the EVP/GM of Interactive at one of the biggest U.S. websites recently told FairWinds that over 90 percent of the traffic to his site is the result of Direct Navigation, and that the direct audience “is our bread and butter.” While direct navigating, it is inevitable that at some point, every user makes a spelling or keystroke error. Brand owners often proactively secure typo variations hoping this will lead to the better protection of their online audiences. Frequently, individuals – unrelated to the brand owner – intentionally register domains that are typos of popular brands in order to monetize or otherwise benefit from traffic generated when Internet users make these kinds of mistakes. This practice is known as typosquatting, and not only does it exploit brand names, it also leads to confusion among consumers and even exposes them to cyberthreats such as malware or phishing schemes. However, typo domains can be problematic for brands even when they are not overtly typosquatted. If the domains were not registered maliciously, or even if the brands themselves own them but do not direct them to the appropriate content, they can cause Internet users and potential customers to have a poor experience or become distracted away from the target brand’s site. We found that for the 25 retailers in this study, over 90 million visitors per year are diverted by typo domain names.
1 http://coremetrics.com/company/2010/pr11-30-10-cyber-monday-online-spending.php
1 http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/12/Billion_Dollar_Bonanza_Cyber_Monday_Surpasses_1_Billion_in_U.S._Spending
3 http://fairwindspartners.com/en/knowledge-center/direct-navigation
