I recently put a video on my googtube blog which featured the comedy stylings of a fellow called "fonejacker". In my haste i called him "phonejacker".

Now, I later found that a lot of people were finding this video post by misspelling fonejacker (my blog appears #1 for the misspelling) and google doesn't display the "did you mean ... ?" link like it usually does for misspellings.

I would like some opinions on two matters.
1. Should i leave the misspelling there?
2. Should i deliberately misspell the name again if i make future posts about the "fonejacker"?

In a way i do like traffic and it is what they are looking for, I'm not being deceptive. But in another way i do like to do things properly.

I'd leave it. People are looking for what you have. I wouldn't call it unethical.

I'd change it...that way, people don't complain. It doesn't bother me personally, but you ruffle the 1 in 1000 wrong feathers that will complain and you'll never hear the end of it.

I don't see anything even vaguely unethical. One, you're giving people what they ask for, and two, it was an honest mistake that you aren't the only one who made.

Adam's advice is serious, though. What do you think are the chances of someone complaining (fonehacker might - you spelled his name wrong) and what would Google do if they got a complaint?

I'm not smart enough to help you weigh those, but maybe someone can comment. I know I spell things wrong every now and then, or even just fat finger it. I don't really know how to spell Tierra del Fuego, although I wrote about it pretty recently. I think I spelled it right, but who knows, it might even be open to some regional interpretation. Personally I never made a big deal out of this, I just try not to make so many mistakes people will think I'm the village idiot.

I don't see anything unethical in this. In fact you should go for misspell each time.

Originally Posted by shabbirbhimani

I don't see anything unethical in this. In fact you should go for misspell each time.

Really? And why is that?

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Really? And why is that?

When the person is looking for something and as Google is not suggesting to him anything he will definitely get some results which are not relevant but with the Mis-spell he will get something more relevant than before. Once Google start suggesting you will definitely see decline in traffic anyways.

I misspelled Snoqualmie Falls as Snoqualamie Falls on one of my pages ... when you say it out loud it sounds like it should be spelled the second way. But it's not. The Pacific Northwest spells the names of places to be confusing: Sequim is pronounced "skwim."

Ethics don't have anything to do with it, unless you're charging people for a spell check service. Otherwise, ethics just aren't related to spelling ... or mathematics, or color theory. I really can't spell, and even I've noticed bad spelling all over the net. You don't owe it to the general public or search engines to get that right every time. Think of all the political sites that get the facts wrong, and publish things that are blatantly untrue. That's unethical. Bad spelling, or even bad grammar has nothing to do with ethics, especially when it's not the easiest thing to spell.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...-spelling.html

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/genera...-spelling.html
About forum posting but relevant I think.

Originally Posted by shabbirbhimani

When the person is looking for something and as Google is not suggesting to him anything he will definitely get some results which are not relevant but with the Mis-spell he will get something more relevant than before. Once Google start suggesting you will definitely see decline in traffic anyways.

So what you're saying is that people should misspell words on purpose because a searcher will get more relevant results and once Google starts suggesting alternate spellings the misspeller will see a decline in traffic.

Does anyone else here think that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?

Does anyone else here think that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?

Yup...
Me too.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Does anyone else here think that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?

Not sure what I think about this.

What if stOx has 2 pages, one with the original spelling and one with his sneaky spelling, each having different content. The people searching for each version of the word get what they want.

At the moment if a misspeller searches and no web publisher has misspelled their content, the misspelling public won't find anything.

Everyone a spell checker and we'll all be fine!

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

I misspelled Snoqualmie Falls as Snoqualamie Falls on one of my pages

Who WOULDN'T mispell Snowkwalamee?

Matt I'm not sure there's anything unethical going on with your misspelling. You might at most be offending fonejacker or someone who knows him or is a fan. I'm not seeing anything unethical in that though.

If anything it's just good business. You're capitalizing on something that others aren't. Is using the misspelling any more unethical than registering a keyword rich domain or using keywords in titles, page headings, URLs, etc?

Thanks for your opinions guys. I think what i will do is leave the current post as it is and in the future use the correct spelling. Will be interesting to see where i rank for the correct spelling too.

Hi guys

I dont think its unethical either, but with the phrase phone jacker, you might not get the right kind of visitors your site might need lol.

Woc

ps fonejacker is an excellent program i think the webmaster talk people would find it amusing, any of you lot want extra ding dings ?

Originally Posted by stOx

Thanks for your opinions guys. I think what i will do is leave the current post as it is and in the future use the correct spelling.

I think yours is the correct spelling, anyway, and everyone else has got it wrong. www.phone-not-fone.co.uk.

I think its end an user feature at it's finest. You may not have intended it, but how many Brits are finding the right content because of it? Call it customer service, definitely not unethical (by design or otherwise). Misspellings are a fact of life, why else would search engines everywhere offer corrections?