I strongly believe that one’s ability to search or browse the Internet can be hindered by their failure to spell words correctly. No wonder domaineers are filthy rich. So many people in the world can’t spell!

Take for example this query made in my search engine:

Initial query:

Freindster

Follow-up query:

Freindster pics

Then:

Freindster pictures

Freindster freinds

I doubt the poor guy found what he was looking for. Misspellings such as this (freind) are more commonplace than you think. About 10% of all search queries are misspelled. That’s why Friendster, like it should be spelled, also bought the domain Freindster.com before them domaineers can snap it up. I have read here and there that optimizing for wrongly-spelled words may also improve traffic, but I tend to disagree. It may increase traffic but definitely not improve it. One of the things I look at in sites such as blogs is the credibility of the writer. Are his posts useful? Do his posts help me make a good decision? Does he spellcheck before publishing?
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