How Fast Meta Scrapers Will Register Domains
I don't really know what to call them but the whois data reads, "MetaPredict" as the registrant. But first, some context. I've been developing, or rather, coding a new design for a web site I own as a hobby. Basically I'm using an old domain as my test server. Easy enough yea? Well I also had some broken links in my design on my server (with an unused and unindexed as far as I knew domain.) Basically I misspelled the domain name of the real web site in some outgoing nav links. In fact, I can tell you exactly how I spelled the 'mistake'....
Our web site www.flamesforum.com was mis-typed to read: www.flmaesforum.com. I've been coding the new web site for a while now, but only recently did I add the wrong links to the nav. At the earliest this happened February 18th, 2008. I also remember accidentally clicking through the broken links and getting non-existent pages. Well you can imagine my surprise yesterday night when I clicked through again only to find a domain squatter/registrant on the mis-type.
Check it out for yourself: http://www.flmaesforum.com and also check out the whois information. It appears there is an automated system (nothing new by the way) that scans mis-types online (I'm thinking somehow through the wordpress system) and registers those domains. I always knew this existed, what I didn't know was how FAST this occurred. It took at most 5 days and perhaps less.
Just goes to show how far people will go to make a buck. I can guarantee you in my case nobody will ever visit the web site so I doubt they'll make the 9 bucks back from the domain registration.
Having said that, it goes to show how important it is to protect your brand by buying all iterations. This is especially important for real corporations looking to--well--like I said, protect online brand. At the end of the day that's all you really have online to differentiate yourself from the competition so guard it closely.
