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Study: URL typos net Google $497m per year
Researchers say the search giant could be earning millions from the registered owners of website addresses that mimic typos in existing sites
Google could be earning some $497m a year from the registered owners of website addresses that mimic typographical errors in existing sites, according to a new study.
Harvard University researchers Tyler Moore and Benjamin Edelman estimate that Google could be making millions from the practice, known as 'typosquatting', because its network of display ads — from which it receives a cut of the profits — run on the typo'd sites.
With help from software, Moore and Edelman crawled 285,000 of some 900,000 'misspelled' sites to estimate the revenue the domains are generating.
For more on this story, see URL typos earn Google $497 million per year, study says on ZDNet.com.