Typosquatting remains a “common issue” for website owners to contend with, it has been claimed.
According to Ramon Ray, typosquatting – which involves snatching misspelled domains which are very similar to popular websites – can be difficult to prevent.
Writing for Smallbiztechology.com, he noted that improved dispute resolution and business defences have helped reduce the risk of cybersquatting since 2000, but typosquatting remains a trickier sub-area.
“A common characteristic of typosquatted domains is a page filled with keywords related to the misspelled website, or even pages offering a search bar to ‘find what you were looking for’,” Mr. Ray stated.
“For the most part typosquatting is difficult to prevent because typosquatters use automated tools to register hundreds – or in some cases thousands – of domains within a short period of time.”
He noted that very quickly, domain names which fail to generate any traffic are dumped.
This process allows squatters to test domains en masse without having to pay full price for domains that are not effective, Mr. Ray added.