DomainBinge

Typosquatting - buying domains based on a misspelling of a domain name (e.g., gogole.com) - is fraught with legal challenges.

But what about reverse-typosquatting?  Here, a company bases its tradename (and probably registers the mark) on a misspelling of a generic term.  Think of Flickr and Flicker (and of several other popular web 2.0 sites and their developer’s penchant for dropping vowels).

The presumably innocent owner of the generic domain can be flooded with typo traffic as non-savvy web users (those not in on the dropped vowel branding strategy) go directly to the generic site.  This might be a desired result if the generic owner monetizes his site with advertising, but what if they were hosting a site that was simply the “web home” of a business (say, a firebox manufacturer)?

I’ve been adding to my domain portfolio over the last several weeks, which has had me thinking quite a bit about monetization strategies.

So far, I see 5 primary strategies* that can be used to monetize individual domains in a portfolio:

1. Direct navigation to landing pages with sponsored ads
2. Hosting small (e.g., 1 to 5 pages), content-based sites that include sponsored ads and/or sponsored content
3. Blogs with sponsored ads and/or sponsored content
4. Web applications
5. Domain-led businesses

*Note that I haven’t included selling the domain. I view this as an option that is always available, and not so much a ‘monetization strategy’ for domains you own.