Google: Did you mean? Optimising for misspellings just got harder!

Google has recently updated its “Did you mean ?” feature seen when a user enters and search’s a commonly misspelt word.

In the past it has been up to the user to click on the “did you mean” link if they decide that they had entered a typo or misspelling. Now Google has begun to introduce the top 2 results for their suggested “correct” spelling as the top 2 results for the original “misspelt” search. In essence pushing a number 1 ranked result back into 3rd.

For example compare the SERP’s for “Autisn” (a common misspelling) with the correct “Autism”.

THE GOOD

This new functionality will of course improve usability for the thousands of users (myself included) that don’t quite enter the search they intended. It will cut down on the number clicks and the time a user spends trying to find a useful site. It may also help Google make efficiency savings as searches may not need to be repeated possibly at the expense of ad inventory.

THE BAD

But this will also help Google cut down on the potentially lucrative strategy for SEO and search specialists of optimising for misspellings. Most strategies involve the creation of hundreds of arguably spam pages optimised for their specific misspelling. As the keyword space and the amount of content optimised for those phrases is comparatively low (generally forums are the only source of misspelt content) many hang around the search index. Google’s new “did you mean” feature may make this practice less appealing in future.

AND THE UGLY

As with most things Google what it considers a common misspelling is determined algorithmically which may not be 100% accurate.

This will particularly hurt businesses which products or services that appear to Google as misspellings. One particular example is of a 15 year old company called “Mailware”. When searching “Mailware” Google offers a “Did you mean: Malware ?” along with the further 2 results that appear top for a search on “Malware”. In essence the company’s homepage is pushed from 1st to 3rd and this will inevitable be bad for business. 

Let see if other user’s make further comments on Google’s Support forum thread initially set up when “Did you mean ?” was still just a link at the top of the results.