Fresh Wall Street Journal article

There’s a fresh article regarding domain names in this weekend’s The Wall Street Journal Sunday.

The Sunday edition of The Wall Street Journal is syndicated in a number of city newspapers, so it probably has more reach than the regular edition. The article is titled “Internet Sites Profit if you Misspell Address” and is regarding typo domain names related to financial sites.

One of the sites profiled is Fafsa.ed.gov, which is the home page for Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). A number of sites have similar names and lead to similar products, such as Fafsa.us, Fasfa.com, and Fasa.com. Not that the first one isn’t actually a typo, but the same name with a different extension. Another example is domains for free credit notes. The US government’s free credit note domain name is annualcreditreport.com, but a number of similar domain names lead to credit protection services. This case is unique since many of these similar domain names were in use ahead of the government created the free credit note program.

Financial domains, in particular regarding credit notes, can bring in big money. It’s not unusual to see $1 and $2 clicks on such domains.