There is nothing I hate more on forums than seeing people put down for making typing errors, typos, a small spelling error or a spelling mistake or whatever U call it! I find it really annoying when I see someone try to make theirself look good or superior pointing out a typo or spelling mistake made by another on a forum. Sometimes these errors are made due to being tired, sometimes these errors are made because of a lack of concentration, sometimes these errors are made due to having English (or whatever language) as a second language, sometimes these errors are made because our fingers just don't work in the same order as our brain, sometimes these errors can even be genuine dyslexia, sometimes these errors can be made because of what I call keyboard dyslexia (similar to your brain and hands getting meddled) I really take a dislike to people who try make out they are a smart arse who never makes a mistake. This is a forum, it is not an exam. This is a few seconds or a few mins that are not the be all and end all subject that defines a person or their intelligence or understaningg! We all make mistakes! Sometimes these mistakes that revolve around typos (spelling mistakes) can be fantastic learning experiences. Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization) is a prime area where spelling mistakes and typos can be a great learning curve that allows insights into something we might never have known if the mistake had not been made. I see myself, SultanOfSEO, w3bwebmaster, Aaron111 to name just a few make typos. So do we really need to slag others off for the odd typo? Is it really nice to put someone down and make yourself look like a smart arse when in actual fact you can learn a lot about SEO and other things from the odd spelling mistake? What are your thoughts? Is it nice to slag a person off and try to belittle them in an Oh So Important forum post just becuase they have English (or whatever language) as a second language or because their brain didn't quite work in unison with their fingers on a particular occasion?
Apart from typos there are many types of English anyway. The same word may have a slightly different spelling in England, America, Australia, Canada etc. I even have one page on a site of mine that gets more organic search visitors because of a typo. Any forum will have typos. It's just that nature of them and the way people type.
It all depends on context - if someone is trying to be the big "I am" and throw their weight around and insist they know more and are cleverer than anyone else, then they are going to get picked up on any mistake. I don't often see people getting picked up for typos and mistakes when they're just asking a question, or making a comment - if they start getting argumentative however, and trying to put other people down - gloves are off - set yourself up - someone will knock you down. In terms of blogs and websites - there is no excuse for having typos. You have time to proof read and examine every word. If you're not familiar with the language, get someone who is to go over it for you - pay someone to, if you really care about the impression you make on your readers and are serious about your blog or site as a money-making concern. p.s I've seen Aaron111's posts over the years, and he definitely adds to the forum, and I would never criticise him for his, shall we say, unique English, but I have never understood any of his posts.
In my newbie opinion, typos are good when you learn from them and they are bad when they convey different meaning. e.g "rich" instead of "reach" and vice-versa. I used to spell good when I was young and intelligent. Not much these days. I think I abuse punctuations.
In terms of forums and informal conversation, I think a typo or spelling error is something you can get away with. However, complete posts where every single word is misspelled do annoy me. On the other hand, when writing content for a business/professional website, typos and spelling errors are a massive no-no!
I agree you should try and get things right on things like websites etc, but nine times out of ten you can quickly work out what a person is rying to say even when a typo has been made. It is just one of my pet hates seeing someone get belittled, especially if it is just because they have english as their second language or may be dyslexic or something. I don't know about others but I make typos regularly and see others do the same and I really do not have the time to spellcheck every post I make. After all is said and done it's just a post in a thread and it is not the ennd of the world and as long as what you are saying can be understood it really should not matter as much as some try to make do.
Exactly why I posted this in the SEO forum vagrant! I have the exact same thing happening to some of my sites when typos are involved. Somebody pointed one out to me in another thread on here recently. I mispely commission as commssion whilst talking about the search term "commission the best SE0" Change 0 for o) and we we're discussing the "Feeling Lucky" search facilty on Google and when the i was missing in the word commission you landed on a completely differentr one of my sites where as when commission was spelt correctly one of my other sites was found. Some useful SEO related things can be learnt from typos imho.
First of all wrong section Secondly yea i know plus most don't have English as there native main language ... anyway i ignore people thinking there are superior based on typos ...
i totally agree with you, i remember 2 years ago my adsense accouyt was disabled and i was so angry (2200$ lost) so i posted here about it and after 2 months i found that i got some silly typos . english is the second language for me. arabic has alot of typos which helps in seo to get a decent amount of traffic
Typos are inevitable. If you write enough copy, everyone will make at least a few. That being said, it's still wise for professional webmasters to strive for excellence in all that we do.
@w3bwebmaster I deliberated whether or not to post this in the SEO forum, but there was a reason I did. It was to point out that rather than attacking others for typos people can learn some useful things that can be applied to SEO tactics. And I don't mean the registering similar domain names so you get traffic from more well known sites tactic. I mean that it is possible to use a typo to gain a visitor and perhaps even a client. I have a page where I wrote about typos and as they got included as examples the page gets hits for those typos. The description appearing on Google matches up enough to possibly spark enough intersted from someone doing a search query even if thye realise they made the typo, like when Google flag it. @mido Yes it must be quite hard for those with English as a second language get their English correct. I notice a lot of bad grammar by people of Asian origin for example. I hope that doesn't sounf offensive in any way it is just something I have observed. Not only that I would be quite willing to help out those who want their grammar checked for proper use of English on my own forum. The reason for that is because I would get traffic and people using the forum forwhich I would be grateful , and I would be helping others to improve things on their sites. So saying if you or anyone you know would like any text checked for grammar if you are unsure just pop over and I will help (last word in my sig is the place). I can use a "code wrap" or something so it doesn't affect others own search results. @Jim4767 This is true Sir and as you say getting things right should definately be strived for for things like our sites, but forum posts really not as important imho. In fact sometimes it can be better to use typos. Whenever I make mention of any SEO search term I am on page 1 of the likes of Google for I always replace the o with an 0 in order to make sure it doesn't affect my own search terms after it actually did once. When I first started to use this method I kept getting replies like "that's not the search term it's o not 0 so it's no wonder you have page 1. LOL I had to get into the practice of writing "(change 0 for 0)" in brackets after each mention as to many the reason for doing so was obviously not being understood. Anyone got any interesting page 1 results from a typo by any chance? I know a little trick how you can include the most common search terms that get made for peoples search terms if anyone wants a heads up. A trick (not a dirty one) that means you can include the most common ones associated with your niche without actually dtracting from your site by having potentially off putting errors in your standard text thta is.