Webupon

Fat Fingers lists different (but all incorrect) spelling of a multitude of well known words for various items and goods found on eBay auction sites.  To quote the information on the front page: thousands of items on eBay are listed with descriptions containing spelling mistakes and these items often expire with no bids on them as no-one can find them. 

Fatfingers is actually rather clever since it lists spellings that people might have used to display goods where the spellings are incorrect.  Believe it or not there are thousands of items that are advertised for sale each year but which are spelt incorrectly.

To use the service you simply type the correct spelling of an item in the search box, select the country you want from the flags above, and press the ‘Find’ button.  The results, in fact, are a search box already completed with the items that are found displayed and ready to read.  Note, if you use a popup blocker then you may have to allow popups before it will work.

For example, the words given for computer were:

conputer, computor, komputer, commuter, computerr, computre, comptuer, compute, computr, compuer, compter, comuter, cmputer, omputer

This certainly seemed comprehensive and it found a lot of computer items on the various Ebay sites that were computer related items.  However, to be honest, not too many of these looked as if they would not have been found by searching for the correct spelling.

But, a search for Amateur Radio, the first word of which is notorious for a wide variety of spellings, did produce some items that would not have been found any other way.

Clicking the ‘Show Options’ words under the search box reveals a number of options that allow you to refine your search by, for example, not including spaces between words in the search or looking for ‘buy it now’ lots only.

Note that the Websites featured are all Ebay sites from a variety of countries with the text translated where needed.

We played with the site, using various search terms and found it useful, indeed very useful for some search terms.  You do need to spend a little time, we thought, and develop a ’sixth sense’ for what to search for.  However, we did find some misspelt items that seemed definite bargains.

A new page on the site leads you to an ‘Advanced Search’ which allows you to tailor-make your own search for misspelt words.  The search criteria are quite comprehensive so it is well worth a look and a little thought before you hit the ‘Find’ button.  Although this idea seems very simple, we definitely thought that it was an art and that time spent using the service would pay dividends later.

If you experience difficulties using the site then the ‘Problems’ section gives some help and explains what the site does. 

If you are a regular eBay user, or if you would like to be, then this website is well worth a bookmark and allocating a little time to develop the best strategy to use.  Aside from English, it is also available in several other European languages and it is, of course, free to use.

This is a very simple idea but one that is extremely useful and the site seems to be well set out and easy to use.  Aside from its search capabilities, it also makes you think a little more about how you list items yourself and gets you to make sure to get your own spelling right!