A Reddit thread asks if there are any issues with Google Search handling a domain name that has a single letter change in the domain name from another domain name. John Mueller from Google said that usually this is not a problem from Google Search.
The question asked was, "Domain name differs by one letter from another site SEO impact?"
The site owner said, "I realized my domain is very similar to another one, just one letter difference
- Mine FAVdomainnameDOTCOM
- Other FABdomainnameDOTCOM
Could this cause any SEO issues like confusion, traffic loss, or ranking problems Or is it not a big deal if the topics are unrelated."
John Mueller from Google replied, "Usually not a problem for search."
The issue that can arise are the Google misspelling feature, where Google shows "Did you mean...". John wrote, "but you might notice that search - at least for a while - could consider it a typo if someone searches for the brand, and recommend the other site. "did you mean fabdomainname?" Over time, this will settle down, as search recognizes that people want to find both names. Depending on how "strong" the other name is, that can take quite some time though."
So that is one big thing to keep in mind and I have seen this come up often enough over the past years.
Forum discussion at Reddit.
