* Political Domain Typos

Registering domain misspellings is cheap insurance.

I read a blog post today in Google Reader (via Rick Klau’s shared items feed) from Obama headquarters about using VoteForChange.com to make sure that you are registered to vote. When I clicked through on VoteForChange.com, I ended up at a nonexistent domain VoteForCahnge.com (note the swapped “a” and “h”). There was a typo in the underlying HTML that would only be caught by an editor who checks all links. (I make this mistake sometimes too.)

Because I think the issue of voter registration is important, I immediately registered the typo domain (VoteForCahnge.com) and redirected it to the correct domain (VoteForChange.com). So I may be the only one who notices this typo.

I also wanted to immediately transfer the domain to the legal owner of VoteForChange.com, but the whois record for voteforchange.com is a proxy registration (i.e. private registration), which I think is a very bad idea, especially for a political site.

To summarize my points:

1. Proof read and link check before posting.
2. Register typo domains. Use the DomainTools domain typo generator tool to find them.
3. Be transparent with whois.

And if you know somebody at VoteForChange.com, please have them contact me so I can transfer the VoteForCahnge.com domain name to them. My email address is easy to find. Check whois for VoteForCahnge.com.

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