A funky spelling in your domain name — Don’t use

It might come back to bite you.

Earlier this month, The Financial Times wrote a story regarding an asset management firm that changed its name from Aberdeen to Abrdn. Apparently, the firm’s CEO made the switch partly since the Aberdeen.com domain he wanted was in use by another firm.

An outside marketing firm warned him against dropping the vowels and wanted its name disassociated with any rebranding.

Indeed, dropping the vowels was a mistake. (That CEO is no longer with the firm.)

Domain registrar GoDaddy released the results of a fresh survey today. Eighty percent of the 1,500 U.S. consumers polled this month stated they avoided visiting or purchasing from a website since it had an oddly spelled domain name.

I suspect many more people say they avoid sites with misspelled domains than actually do in practice.

Still, it’s another reminder of the importance of choosing a domain that looks professional or matches the tone of the website.

When email marketing platform Beehiiv launched, I stayed away since of its lousy domain. It made me think the firm wasn’t serious. (I had to look it up just now to remember how to spell it.)

In addition to misspelled words, survey respondents cited hyphens and numbers in domains, and names that don’t match the business name, as red flags.