Typo Generators Are Fun Algorithms and Good Times
Oh yeah, its true, Domain Check just launched a brand new Typo Generator on their site to make sure you can get every single misspelling and typo error of any word you could possible think of… as a domain. It won’t be long before this Typo Generator is in the WordPress plugin as well and will be able to do domain checks and typo domain name lookups. Its common to generate typo domain name for big brands and typo tools are a fun game of string manipulation and algorithms. In the end the results are kinda fun to look at but when you realized the number of possible typos for longer words you can see its pretty expensive for brands with longer domains.
Want to Get Technical With Typographical Errors?
Because that’s what going on here and over at the Domain Check Typo Generator. Using the Damerau–Levenshtein distance, the computer science algorithm that basically says you have fat fingers, this set of typos is over 80% of all known typos. Anything outside of this boundary of typos are unusual or edge cases. Even Google search doesn’t do a good job covering those and will often prompt for unusual things or other suggestions. Speaking of Google suggestions on typos, the Google suggestions which relies heavily on the Damerau–Levenshtein distance to prompt correct answers for misspelled search results likely had a major impact on traffic to sites relying on organic typos. Whomp whomp. In fact the real place this method of typo detection is proving itself useful is in form field validation. Detecting typos in email addresses and domain names on sign up forms, or correcting for common misspellings on known data like states and countries.
Typos have funny effects. If you like puns and Dad jokes then the ultimate typo is for you: there is a technical term for when a typo turns the original word in to another word. That’s called an atomic typo!!! One of the reasons typos are so common has only recently been brought to light through Internet urban legends, widely shared email chains, and now virally shared social media posts. This is the curious case of Typoglycemia: you’re able to correctly read a sentence composed of nothing but typographical errors just fine as long as all the letters for each word are there. Typoglycemia is essentially autocorrect in the human mind.
I cdn’uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg
Atomic typos will be seen by the human eye and mind because they are a complete word. Science has no word for when the typo makes a word nonsensical but creates a new, sometimes unintentional or vulgar word within the outer or nonsensical word. We’re calling them subatomic typos. When a typo creates a word within another word the human mind sees the word in the middle, that is a subatomic typo. While there is no scientific study on subatomic typos yet, they do occur. When a typo generates a new word in a word it causes the human eye and mind to focus on the recognized word within the middle of the word. Instead of reading the whole word via typoglycemia the inner word is recognized because the pattern of a correctly spelled word trumps the outer typoglycemic word. The inner word will always be shorter in character length than the outer word, making it more easily recognized than a longer word. This effect is also noticeable without typos when either compounding words or truncating two words and combining them. Subatomic typos are only slight less atomic, but no less destructive, than their atomic counteparts.
Typos Can Be Treacherous and Teacherous – Tips for How Brands and Businesses Can Use Typos And Avoid Typos During Marketing and Advertising
Typos can be incredibly embarrassing for brands and businesses. Typos in brand messaging, advertisements, communication, signage, or social media make the brand appear inattentive, non-domestic, unprofessional, under qualified, and/or of inferior quality. Typos can break the character of a brand during customer support sessions. Typos, misspellings, and incorrect grammar are some of the most notorious pieces of troll bait. Typos in online media or social networks where users can respond will invite negative messaging, (“trolling”, “trolls”, and “cyberbullying”), regardless of content or tone. Other customers and users will inevitably see these negative comments and will internalize that negativity with the brand.
Brand names, domain names, product names, and naming in general is one place where typos can really help or hurt a business. As discussed above with Domain Check Typo Generator you can get all of your brand’s typos, misspellings, and typo domain names. Covering those bases can get customers in the door instead of letting them hit a wall. Brands with common typo URLs, either in the domain name or in a subdomain that point to the correct place can be seen as helpful, competent, useful, caring, and/or providing a personalized experience. It is common to create new startup or product names by combining shortened versions of words so be aware of common atomic typos and subatomic typos during creative naming and brand identity brainstorming sessions. Watch your incoming search keywords, internal site search keywords, customer support tickets, and incoming client and customer emails to identify common misspellings, typos, or general misnomers being made with your products and brand. Autocorrect and suggested searches on form fields for things like typoed URLs, typoed email, and typoed search will improve conversion.
With the increase in brand communication to customers typos are slightly more acceptable than they were; a single typo will not ruin your brand’s entire image. On faster and ephemeral social media platforms typos are routinely ignored. Celebrities often tweet typos, though celebrities with clean, intelligent, perfectionist, pious and/or authoritative public personas, characters, or active roles may actively avoid typos in communications. Some characters embrace typos to convey a particular persona. As the title of this section suggests, a good typo can make a funny; it might not be grammatically correct but it gets the point across. With modern small phone screens and fat fingers some typos, and their resultant autocorrects, have become memes. There are entire comedy sites dedicated to autocorrect and typos.
Speaking of typos, who decided to put the ‘s’, ‘e’, and ‘x’ keys that close?