Some time ago I was browsing Namepros (as I do on a daily basis) and came across a post which was mentioning about the usual fraudulent sales on eBay.
People regularly sell IDN’s on eBay but try and dress them up as premium names with a distinct rarity.
Of course it is very rare that any of these domains are in fact sought after. What usually happens if that they will either substitute a 0 for an o for example or even more devious use an international character such as an ยง instead of an s. Of course in this instance it is fairly easy to see the difference but that is not always the case.
Anyway I decided to make a tool which could help people distinguish what a character in a domain name is so I made this tool (A previous problem has been sorted). The tool is of course is far from perfect but is good enough as a starting point. At the moment you simply place the domain name in question and it will color code the domain name (i.e. letters 1 color, numbers another etc). This I believe makes it easy for you to see the makeup of the domain and can see exactly what it entails.
The tool is obviously far from perfect I plan on making it a proper tool people will happily use. I plan on adding a few features such as file upload so that the script will check the content of the file(this will include xml, csv as well as standard text files).
If you find any problems with the script please feel free in letting me know. Also if you can think of any additional features feel free to suggest.
Do you have an idea for a tool that would make a domainers life easer? Let me know!
Hi,
A while back someone was selling the domain VOIP.info.
I contacted the seller to make sure that it was really all 4 letters and really the acronym VOIP.
His reply was that he wishes it were but that the o was really a 0.
In the title and body copy he used the letter o.
He never used a 0 or mentioned that the o was a 0.
Scum!
I tried your script just now using V0IP.com.
It did not recognize the 0 as a number.
All results were green.
Another common scam is to use the letter V twice to make it look like a W.
VV or W.
With some fonts it’s hard to tell the difference.
The same with using the letter lower case letter l (eye) for Capital I (el).
They look identical.
Is there anyway your tool could uncover that type of deception?
Thanks.
Patrick
Hi Patrick
I agree these sort of tactics are immoral and deceitful. Unfortunately places such as eBay are too willing to allow it to continue.
I will look at why the script is not working properly. I have just tried it and you are indeed correct. Looks like there are some other breaks in it as well possibly caused by the upgrade in PHP I recently carried out. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
The problem is now sorted. It in fact only had a problem if a 0 was in the domain and did not recognise it as a number.
It looks like PHP’s loose type casting caused the problem.