Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, involves creating domain names that is a variation on a popular domain name with the expectation that the site will get traffic off of the original sight because of mistakes such as typographical errors (typos) made by Internet users while typing a website address into a web browser. Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.
Once in the typosquatter's site, the user may also be tricked into thinking that they are in fact in the real site; through the use of similar logos, website layouts or content. Some such sites may have been created with malicious intent to spam users with a popups and foist executable downloads. More common are benign sites, selling advertising to firms based on keywords similar to the misspelled word in the domain.
A company may try and preempt typosquatting by obtaining a number of websites with common misspellings and redirect them to the main, correctly spelled website. For example www.gooogle.com, www.goolge.com, www.gogle.com www.gewgle.com, and others, all redirect to http://www.google.com.
Egs of typosquatting: wikiepdia.org, wilipedia.org, goggle.com, googlr.com
(Such sites may be malicious in intent, check them out at your own risk!)
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