Typosquatting: When Your Domain Has Dangerous Neighbors

What Is Typosquatting?

Typosquatting (also called URL hijacking) is when someone registers a domain name similar to yours, hoping to catch users who:

• Mistype your URL
• Misremember your domain
• Click on deceptive links
• Don’t notice subtle differences

For example, if your store is amazingstore.com, typosquatters might register:

• amazingstore.co (different TLD)
• amazinstore.com (missing letter)
• amazingsotre.com (transposed letters)
• amazing-store.com (added hyphen)
• amazingstores.com (added letter)

Why Typosquatting Is Dangerous

Direct Traffic Theft

A percentage of your customers will mistype your domain. Without protection, those customers end up on scam sites instead of your store.

Brand Impersonation

Typosquat domains are used for:

• Clone stores that steal sales
• Phishing sites that steal credentials
• Malware distribution
• Competitor advertising

SEO Damage

Scammers may buy ads on your brand keywords using typosquat domains, or build content designed to rank for your brand name.

Customer Confusion

Even if a typosquat domain just shows an error page, customers may think your store is broken or has closed.

Common Typosquatting Techniques

Character Omission

yourstore.com → yourstore.com (looks identical but uses different characters)

Character Substitution

Using visually similar characters:

• l (lowercase L) → 1 (number one)
• o → 0
• rn → m

Wrong TLD

• .com → .co, .net, .shop, .store

Added/Removed Characters

• yourstore.com → yourstores.com
• yourstore.com → yourstore.com

Homograph Attacks

Using international characters that look like ASCII:

• а (Cyrillic) looks like a (Latin)
• е (Cyrillic) looks like e (Latin)

Warning Signs of Typosquatting

1. Customer confusion about your “other website”
2. Brand searches showing unfamiliar domains
3. Direct traffic drops without explanation
4. Phishing reports from similar domains

How SecurEcommerce Detects Typosquats

DNSTwist Integration

We use DNSTwist to generate and check hundreds of domain variations based on known typosquatting patterns:

• Bitsquatting (bit-flip errors)
• Homoglyphs (look-alike characters)
• Hyphenation variations
• Insertion/deletion/substitution
• Repetition and transposition
• Vowel swaps
• Common misspellings

Daily Monitoring

Our automated system checks these variations regularly, alerting you when:

• A new typosquat domain is registered
• An existing domain starts hosting content
• A typosquat shows signs of malicious use

Risk Assessment

Each discovered domain receives a risk score based on:

• Whether it’s hosting content
• Content similarity to your site
• Registration date and registrar
• Known malicious indicators

What To Do About Typosquats

Defensive Registration

Register common typos of your domain preemptively. This prevents scammers from getting them first.

Monitor Actively

You can’t register everything. Monitoring with SecurEcommerce catches new typosquats quickly.

Take Action on Threats

When a dangerous typosquat appears:

1. Document the infringement
2. Contact the domain registrar
3. File UDRP (domain dispute) if needed
4. Report to Google Safe Browsing
5. Alert customers if necessary

Build Brand Resilience

• Use consistent branding so customers recognize legitimate communications
• Provide clear guidance on your official domain
• Make your real site easy to find and verify

The Typosquatting Economy

Typosquatting is big business. Domains are registered speculatively, with operators hoping to:

• Sell the domain to you at inflated prices
• Earn ad revenue from misdirected traffic
• Harvest credentials for sale
• Run scam stores

Early detection is your best defense. SecurEcommerce helps you find these threats before they find your customers.