On most SEO-related blogs, you’re usually served with worn out, used up tips.  By the time you hear about the things that really make a website pop, or some newfound traffic method, they’re out of date.  This makes sense, I mean, when John Smith SEO finds out about some great traffic generator or tweak, he’d be hesitant to tell anyone as long as it worked.  Once he saw a significant decrease in traffic from the technique, he’d gladly publish it to the masses and make himself sound like a great expert.

But today I’m going to tell you about a tip that you can take advantage of today, and it’ll help you today.  But first, a little background in domain kiting.

Go Fly a Kite

There’s a thing out there in the ‘domain world’ called domain kiting or domain tasting.  Basically, it goes like this.  Paul finds a great domain that is a misspelling of another website – say freecrditscore.com.  He buys the domain, forwards it on to a credit score affiliate, and watches to see how much traffic he gets from people fat-fingering the domain.  If it’s a good one (he’s making money) then he keeps it.  If not, he simply requests a refund from the registrar and gets his domain registration fee back.  He put his kite out there to see if it’d get struck by lightning or not.  If not, he wasn’t out any money.  It’s an interesting way to live on the edge, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Buying domains with misspellings is nothing new, but I’ve found a new twist on it that you may be able to take advantage of.

Which brings me to today’s tip.  Something that I discovered only a week ago.

Stealing Traffic Legally

There’s a new domain extension available from most registrars.  It’s the .co extension.  So if you were so inclined, you could go and buy yourdomain.co for around $29/year.  Yeah, it’s a little high, but that’s ok if you’re interested in keeping your brand in check or don’t want others to register your name.

The great thing about the Internet is that so many diverse people use it.  Not everyone is a great typist, some use the hunt and peck method to type in their information.  These are the people that we can target to our advantage.

There are some big companies that haven’t yet claimed their .co domain name.  For those in St. Louis, can you believe:

• KMOX.co
• ecolifestl.co
• KPLR11.co
• RiverfrontTimes.co
• BrownandCrouppen.co
• STLCars.co
• Fox2Now.co

These are just some examples that are available and could bring significant traffic to your website.

Who in your industry is the big hitter?  (If it’s not you,) you should consider purchasing the top .co domains and forwarding them to your website.

I’m Not a Lawyer

Now there may be some instances where trademark law comes into play, but for most domain names, you can probably simply purchase the domain and forward it to your website without problem – especially more vague ones such as autoloans.co or

Your Feedback

What are your thoughts on buying domains for misspellings or domains that others have overlooked?  Sneaky? Unethical? Genius? I’d love to hear what you think.