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Few months ago I wrote about a number of domain mining techniques. The subject is a lifelong fascination of mine (since I’ve gotten in the domain business) with no shortage of material in sight. If you’re a website owner the following will explore possible ways of which may result in you losing traffic to various URL’s. If you are a domain owner the following may serve as mining opportunities - finding variation of domain names to gain traffic. Letter dropping Description: Take one letter off the original domain. Original: Domain.com Typos: domain.com, dmain.com, doain.com, etc QWERTY Typos Description: Each letter on the QWERTY keyboard is surrounded by other keys, letters. In many instances we press on keys next to the one we originally intended to. Original: Domain.com Typos: Dlmain.com, Dimain.com, Dpmain.com, etc English/American spelling Description: Some words are written differently between American and English languages. Example below. Original keyword: “Color” American spelling with extension: Color.com English Speliing: with extension Colour.com Extension typos Description: Dropping or mixing letters of the URL extension. A famous case is the Cameroon’s .CM case. Original: Domain.com Typos: Domain.Cm, Domain.Co, Domain.Om Dyslexia Description: Since Dyslexia is related to the written language/spelling, it is directly related to typing in keywords in the URL bar. Original: Original.com Typo: Origunsl.com Jumble Visual Description: Mixing letters, usually the result of fast typing or bad habits. Original: Domain.com Typos: Dmoain.com, Doamin.com, Domian.com, etc Associations/Similar words Description: This is a huge traffic leakage issue, possibly the biggest of them all. Many people who wants to reach a brand name, for example SmithMemorial.com, will actually type SmithFuneralHomes.com or FuneralHomes.com, because they remember the association rather then the brand name (Volume/Value issue). This goes all day long across the web and is responsible for many millions of traffic leakage a day. This is also one of the most important reasons why ownership of generic domains, in addition to your brand name, is a smart and sound proposition. Original: GreatDomainNames.com Variation: BestDomainNames.com, GreatDomains.com, BestDomains.com, GreatNames.com, etc. Extensions Description: Simply put, some will check other extensions using your brand name to try to reach you. Original: Domain.com Variation: Domain.net Mixed words Description: Related to associations point above, some will remember your keywords but will mix them up, resulting in losing traffic. Original: DogTraining.com Variation: TrainingDog.com Generic Thinking Description: see related post here. Original: GreatFood.com Variation: Food.com Missing Dot Syndrome Description: Users forget the dot after WWW resulting in them visiting a completely different URL. My friend Jessica Bookstaff says: "People mistakenly miss the dot as in wwwdomain.com. When you type that into your browser, the browser of course thinks you want www.wwwdomain.com - an entirely different url… " Source: Posted on The Conceptualist by Sahar Sahid — Reprinted with permission — March 3, 2008