Adding a keyword to Google "Did you mean"

[spenland949]

Hello, I have a question for all of you. Have you ever noticed the "Did you mean" link that appears in red when you type a keyword into google? I was wondering if there is any way to submit a keyword to Google so that it will not display a "Did you mean" in the search results. There is another company out there that has a name very similar to ours that is only one letter different. I feel like I may be losing customers because of it. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

"Did you mean" is a Google function controlled by the algo or whatever so AFAIK you cannot stop this from occuring.

[Woz]

If memory serves, I believe Googleguy said some time ago that a request could be made for changes to the "did you mean" algo. Have a search through some of the old threads and you should find it.

Onya
Woz

[spenland949]

Thanks guys, I've contacted Google and requested that my website be added to the algorithm so that that text will stop appearing.

[irubin]

can you guys post the google URL?

[spenland949]

This is the response I got from google when I emailed them about the algo:

Thank you for your note. Google uses spell checking software to check queries against the most common spelling of each word. When we calculate a greater number of relevant search results with an alternative spelling, you'll see "Did you mean: (more common spelling)" at the top of your search results page.

For example, a search for [ Google bot ] returns approximately 1,620,000 search results. At the top of the search results page, you'll see "Did you mean: Googlebot." Clicking on "Googlebot," the correct spelling of our web crawler, yields a search with nearly a million more results.

Please note that our spell check feature is completely automated, and we cannot make manual changes to individual suggestions.

Regards,
The Google Team

I still think this sucks. They should be able to add a function to there algo to ignore certain words. Thanks again google.

[stuartc1]

Looks like your only alternative is to get your name out on lots of sites and have it in as many link anchor text as possible - so that the results for your name are higher than the results for your competitor! Hope your name is not a common work found in the dictionary or you will have a very large job ahead!

[Fighting Falcon]

A similar problem existed on our site..it actually gave our competitor's name as an alternative......... :)

The problem seemed to sort itself after a while .

[spenland949]

Yeah it's just going to take a lot of hard work getting our name out there. Thanks to all of you for your advice.

[moftary]

Not even that would make your out of the dictionary name included. I used to have thousands of incoming links from high authority websites and still "Did you mean?". I contacted them but nothing. The weird thing is that some out of dictionary names are interpretted well (ikobo, for an example). But that maybe a cuincidence or maybe it's not a dictionary thing.