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Typosquatting

Typosquatting is the registration of domains that exploit common typing mistakes of a well-known domain, such as "gogle.com" or "amazn.com", to capture mistyped traffic.

Updated 1 min read

How it works

Attackers register variants with missing letters, swapped characters, doubled keys, or alternative endings like .co instead of .com. A visitor who mistypes the address lands on a page the attacker controls, used for ads, malware, phishing, or resale.

How it relates to brand impersonation

Typosquatted domains are a primary vehicle for brand impersonation and email spoofing. They let attackers send mail that looks like it comes from you and host lookalike pages that fool your customers.

How nebty helps

nebty domain monitoring generates and watches the typo and variant space around your brand, scoring new registrations by risk so you see threats before they go live and can trigger a takedown in one click.

How to spot a typosquatted domain

Most typosquats fall into a few patterns: a missing or doubled letter (gogle, googgle), two adjacent keys swapped (gooogle), a substituted character that looks close (rn for m), or a different ending such as .co or .cm instead of .com. On a phone the address bar truncates the URL, which is exactly why mobile users get caught. The habit that protects you is simple: read the domain right to left from the final dot, since the real owner controls the part immediately before the top-level domain and anything to the left can be faked. For a brand owner, the defence is to enumerate that variant space yourself and watch new registrations, so you see a typosquat at registration rather than after it sends its first email.

If you spot one in the wild, report it to the registrar abuse contact, because a single typosquat usually targets many people before anyone flags it.

Cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to someone else’s brand or trademark, in bad faith.

Domain abuse & monitoring

Combosquatting combines a brand name with an extra word, such as "paypal-security.com" or "apple-support.net", to create a domain that looks legitimate and trustworthy.

Domain abuse & monitoring

A lookalike domain is any domain crafted to resemble a legitimate one closely enough to deceive. It is the umbrella term that covers typo-, combo-, and homoglyph squatting and more.

Domain abuse & monitoring

A homoglyph domain swaps letters for visually identical characters, often from other alphabets, like a Cyrillic "а" for a Latin "a", to spoof a brand domain almost invisibly.

Domain abuse & monitoring

Bitsquatting is registering domains one bit different from a target domain, exploiting rare memory errors that flip a single bit so a device resolves the wrong, attacker-owned name.

Domain abuse & monitoring

Domain monitoring is the continuous tracking of newly registered and changed domains that resemble your brand, so you can spot lookalikes and abuse early, before they are used against you.

Domain abuse & monitoring

Domain hijacking is the theft of control over a domain, by compromising the owner registrar account, transferring it without authorization, or altering its DNS, so the attacker can redirect or impersonate the real site.

Domain abuse & monitoring

A domain takedown is the process of getting a fraudulent or infringing domain deactivated or removed by the parties that control it: the registrar, the hosting provider, or the registry.

Takedown & response
Free report

See who is impersonating your brand

The free nebty report scans the web for lookalike domains and fake profiles targeting your brand, with no obligation.

Benedikt Scheungraber

Benedikt Scheungraber

Co-Founder & CEO

Questions about brand protection, or want to see nebty in action? I’m happy to walk you through it myself and talk openly about whether we can help with your case.