Typo is Web page's windfall

Traffic looking for e-mail service Gmail winds up at Gamil

RALEIGH -- To most people, a typo is an annoyance. To Aly Khalifa, it's a (key)stroke of luck.

Since online juggernaut Google launched its popular Gmail e-mail service two years ago, millions of sloppy typists have accidentally ended up at the Web site for his Raleigh firm, Gamil Design.

This fall, the industrial designer figured out how to turn the mistake into an opportunity.

He has set up a Web page at www.gamil.com that advertises his own products, his favorite Raleigh designers and even a pit bull rescue shelter. In a short message penned by his wife, he also apologizes for the confusion.

"You may have arrived here by misspelling Gmail," reads the Web site. "We understand. Typing fast is not our strongest skill. But since you've typed your way here, let's share."

Sleazier operators try to profit from these kind of mistakes, setting up deceptively similar Web addresses to sell poker and pornography. But Khalifa -- who named the company for his middle name, Arabic for "beautiful" -- just hopes to generate a little publicity.

His main product is the Teastick, a tubelike infuser for loose tea leaves that sells in more than 200 stores internationally. He also links to Holly Aiken's handbags, boosting her Web site by an additional 500 hits a month, compared with the usual 2,000 to 3,000.

Both say it's hard to tell how many times that has translated into a sale, but it has certainly gotten the word out. Before Gmail, Khalifa's Web site got about 3,000 visitors a month. Last month, it reached more than 600,000.

"You beat your head against so many things, and then something like that falls in your lap," said Khalifa, 38. "It's better to be lucky than smart, I guess."

It will only grow from here.

Google plans to expand the popular e-mail service, which has been limited to invitation-only during a testing phase. Currently, it's fourth among free Web-based e-mail services, trailing Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL with more than 10 million active users.

In an e-mail message, Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne said she hopes the typo "works out well" for Khalifa.

Khalifa first learned that something was coming in May 2004 when a Google engineer in Australia e-mailed him. The engineer kept stumbling onto the Gamil Web site and was curious if it had got more hits than usual. At that point, traffic had more than doubled and was growing.

At first bemused, Khalifa became angry when his Internet provider wanted to raise his monthly fee to nearly $100 because of the extra traffic.

But he had an epiphany during an argument with a representative from the provider. "He said, 'If you can't figure out how to make money on this, I'm not going to feel sorry for you,' " Khalifa said.

Problems created by Google can sometimes be solved by it as well.

Khalifa signed up for an online service called AdSense, which pays pennies for each time a visitor clicks on a small text ad. Google automatically selects the ads based on the content of the Web site.

For Khalifa, they're usually for loose tea, handbags and ... typing schools.