Is it a bad idea to include lost of frequently mis-spelled keywords when creating your site, anticipating that poeple will search with these mis-spelled words in their query? I'm guessing this is a bad idea. You don't mis-spell these words in your content and I would think that it just won't help traffic or your ranking. My Website people are using this technique and I think it might be doing more harm than good. Just wanted some feedback before I took action.

Misspellings were common back 'in the day'.. While there is no hard fast 'rule' about it, the search engines would prefer that you didn't do it..

Add to this the more important fact that it's hard for a customer to take you seriously when you can't even spell the words that are important to you properly.. It can make you and your site look less than professional and does not inspire confidence..

Anyone suggesting this as a tactic for ranking needs to be beaten with a stick.. Seriously, it's usually suggested by people that can't rank for the 'real thing' so they try to rank for misspellings as proof that they have a clue.. In your case it looks like a tactic to get you to "upgrade" your service with them..

Tell them to stop..

Actually it can be good and bad,

mispelled words/phrases can be good converting terms PROVIDED you handle it properly. Contrary to popular belief the people who find your page through a misspelling often don't know they have misspelt it, so you are not looking unprofessional to them, you have answered their exact query.
Yes you have to look professional to the people who do spell the word correctly, BUT you also need to be able to address the searchers needs who might well be guessing at the spelling of something.

One site I looked after 5 or 6 years ago had a genuine customer review entry, where the customer had misspelled the manufacturers name, which was a watch designer. That one page got a lot of traffic for the misspelling and had an incredible 70% + conversion rate.
Ever since then I have been a great believer in using misspellings where ever possible.

Forget about the rankings, get the traffic and sales potential.

set up a "did you mean" system and / or a page of common misspelling with a explanation of why they have arrived there and where to buy (on your site) what you think they are looking. It's far from being unprofessional IMO, it's offering the (potential) customer a service.

While I agree with you that a lot of people can't spell.. It's really hard these days to ignore the "Did you mean" bold text at the top of the page when you do a search on Google.. So actively targeting misspelled words as search terms is a bad idea IMO.. And while the anecdote about the site you mentioned is interesting, you said yourself, that was 5 or 6 years ago..

I like the idea of a glossary / common misspellings page.. It can be useful and drive traffic.. But to stick misspelled words in your content on purpose?? Hardly a good idea.. But, I'm in that rather large category of shoppers that will not buy from sites that can't spell properly.. To me it's an indication of their attention to detail and quality..

The mispelled words don't appear to the borwse. They are contained in the meta tag. Good or Bad?

Pretty much pointless.

Yup, since Google ignores the keywords meta tag there is no point in stuffing it.. Spelled right or wrong.. It simply doesn't matter..

If you want a way to implement this, try looking at the Levenshtein distance and/or the Damerau-Levenshtein distance (which is supposed to be faster). PHP also has a Levenshtein function.

Originally Posted by Feydakin

While I agree with you that a lot of people can't spell.. It's really hard these days to ignore the "Did you mean" bold text at the top of the page when you do a search on Google..

I'm with Chris, but this is an excellent point. I use Google as a spell check these days, when I'm not sure about a particular word. As a general rule, I find that while I might be able to find info with a misspelling, if I click Google's "did you mean" link, the quality of the search results goes up drastically. So I tend to click that link if it's there, unless it clearly missed the mark. And sometimes it does.

Originally Posted by Feydakin

But, I'm in that rather large category of shoppers that will not buy from sites that can't spell properly.. To me it's an indication of their attention to detail and quality..

I doubt that's a very large category of people, honestly. I doubt 80 % of the shopping public has enough attention to detail, to catch whether anyone else is paying any attention to detail.