Did you mean to search for: ....

how many results are needed to stop this question from Google?

[mars9820]

Dear all,

I created a new homepage using a made up word for the domain (combined 2 words into one).

If you do a search for "domain" (remove www. and .com)

It will show 2 URL's from my page as well as a couple incoming links.

But Google always show. Did you mean to search for ......

When will this stop? How many results I need to stop this? At current moment I am just over 100 results in Google but this is not enough yet.

Feedback is highly appreciated.

[peewhy]

I have an unusual surname, another individual famed for some student action has a similar surname ... one letter different.

When people search for me, they get the other option too in Google. This has been there for years and years.

The number of searches is probably into the thousands.

Google has an effective 'near spelling' system, when you make a small typo .... it's brilliant!

When you know exactly what you are looking for .... and it still asks, it's annoying!

I don't think you will see the end of it. It is offering options.

I bet if you typed in Google it wouldn't say;
"did you mean Goggle? :)

[mars9820]

Well I will keep the forum posted regarding this since the amount of incoming links is growing and thus the pages that contain this keyword.

There should be a set value for this issue. As you mentioned words like COMPAQ will not be changed to.....COMPACT

On the other hand. Noone will search for my domain name, but to other keywords. It is just something I am curious about.

[Shak]

I think 1 site alone can not make the switch, so 1000s of backlinks would probably not make difference.

whats probably required is 1000s or 100,000s of mentions of the word across the web to stop the "did you mean" happening, and considering Google has a big database to match everything up with :)

(the above is just my thoughts, and NO research has been carried out)

Shak

[takagi]

Hey, I would write to user support and mention that it's a bad spelling correction. They'll pass it on to the engineers, who will want to test if it's a weird corner case, or if it usually improves quality for the average user. Drop us a line.

(GoogleGuy in msg 10 of the thread: Google phrase correction [webmasterworld.com])

[vitaplease]

I have 3200 results shown for a toolbar search for my domain name which is a unique non existing name.

Google nevertheless says did you mean "another non-existing name" with 1930 search results for that domain name (hosted in the US).

My site is hosted in the Netherlands, if I do the search for my domain name with google.nl it does not come up with the suggestion.

So on the one side there is geo-location involved with the suggestion tool and on the other side Google is clue-less. (because it does not do a reverse suggestion for a search of the other non-existing domain in google.nl).

I think Google a long time ago made an initial dictionary with so-called "existing names and words" that still prevail and that toolbar searches prefer US hosted or these original "names".

I did several suggestions towards Google last year but nothing except the geolocation "implementation" changed.

[edited by: vitaplease at 12:16 pm (utc) on July 9, 2003]

[mars9820]

wow....you guys are fast.

I checked a couple other "strange words" (company names in Asia are most of the time strange so opportunities enough).

I found a couple names with about 1,000 pages indexed without the did you meant to search for.....

But I found as well some pages with 3,000 pages indexed with the did you meant to search for....

So I think it is a combination of Pagerank and amount of pages indexed with the specified word.

[vitaplease]

Its not Pagerank and its not the amount of pages indexed.

[mars9820]

There must be a tricker to stop Google with this suggestion.

In case Google has to manually edit their database they will immediately solve global unemployement issues.

Everyday many new words are "created"

I am in the situation that my "invented word" goes to another invented word that has 1 letter less.

The other domain only has 500 pages indexed. Which is a very small number.

Vita....what is your PR on the "strange domainname?"

[mack]

I also have a made up domain (three words) when I used to search for the said name it always offered alternatives. Now it doesn't. I think it comes down to hom many pages it finds using this as anchor text?

Mack.

[swerve]

In my opinion, this has nothing to with PR, Backlinks, or anything at all to do with your site.

It seems to me that it would be based of volume of searches for that particular phrase. For example, if 1 million people search for "microsoft" every day, and 1,000 people search for "microsft" the system would be smart enought to assume that there is a good chance the latter case is a spelling error. My guess that there are thresholds involved that are used as probabilities of spelling errors, which trigger the "did you mean?" question.

[vitaplease]

its also not Alexa rankings..;)

>> volume of searches

something to that effect makes sense swerve
(at least - for what its worth - I found I have slightly less suggested for my domain with the Overture suggestion tool than the suggested other domain name has).
Still, geo-location wise, this would not be the reason for my suggestion case.

[peewhy]

Google is effecient at providing near spellings.. that's what it is doing and for each single person that doesn't like a particular instance, there are tens of thousands that do.

Remember it isn't pointing out a mis-spelling - just checking that it is what you are looking for.

[mcavic]

Hmm, this is interesting:

"compaq" has 7,000,000 listings.
"compact" has 9,180,000 listings.
"compac" has 54,200 listings.

And when I search for "compac", it suggests compaq instead of compact. But, if I search for "compac car", it suggests compact car.

Looks pretty darn intelligent to me.

[Sigmund Freud]

I bet if you typed in Google it wouldn't say;
"did you mean Goggle? :)

Well, you're right. They don't offer that suggestion for "Google".

But interestingly, if you type in "Googles" -- with an 's' -- you do get : "did you mean Goggles?"

I'm sure it's an oversight, and they'll be sure to correct it right away. They'll probably ask, instead,

"Since there is only one Google, did you mean 'Google' instead of 'Googles'? We sincerely hope, for your sake, that this is the case."

-Siggie

[swerve]

And when I search for "compac", it suggests compaq instead of compact. But, if I search for "compac car", it suggests compact car.

Good example, mcavic. This supports my theory that it is based on search query volume. In the this example, it is safe to assume that more people search for "compaq" than "compact" - thus the probability is deemed higher that the searcher may have intended to enter "compaq" instead of "compac". Likewise, it is also safe to assume that more people search for "compact car" than "compaq car".

I agree, it is very intelligent - and a great feature. In the vast majority of cases (in my experience), it is bang on (I make a lot of typos...). However, like any "automated algorithm", there are cases in which poor suggestions are made, such as those mentioned in this thread.

[peewhy]

When it's good it's brilliant ... when it's bad - it's useless :)

[g1smd]

>> whats probably required is 1000s or 100,000s of mentions of the word across the web to stop the "did you mean" happening, and considering Google has a big database to match everything up with :) <<

In that case any words that are mis-spelled on millions of websites would not have any alternative offered for them, but looking around I do find plenty of examples where there are a very large number of mis-spelling but they are still flagged with Did you mean....

Google cannot automatically tell if any word used on any site is actually correct or not. It might be a trade name, a foreign language word, or something else. All the suggestion can do is offer similar words, just in case that was what you were actually looking for, not because what you typed was wrong.

[HitProf]

I am with swerve.

The correction seems to be based on the number of searches, not on the number of pages. Google will sometimes return LESS pages when you click on the suggested corrected phrase.

[peewhy]

I have just typed in 'Goggle' ... thinking Google will say "did you mean Google?" , but it didn't.

So I tried 'yoohoo' - no alternative.

[HitProf]

Both have sufficient 'real' searches peewhy. They are not just misspellings :)

[peewhy]

Even 'Goolies' isn't queried ... did you mean *ollocks?

I reckon you're right about them correcting the Google/Goggle thing.

This is where their spywhere comes into it ... after three everyone do a search for 'goggle'. :)

[Monkscuba]

I do think that if you are already searching with Google, they are not going to ask "Did you mean Google?". No need since you're already there.

..but I tried searching Googl,

and got the "Did you mean: google"

In this case, you can see why. "Googl" is not what you'd call a common word, or even a real word, so it's right to assume a mis-spelling. Compared to "Goggle" or "Goggles" which are real words.

Similarly, try searching for "Yaho" and they direct you to Yahoo (very kindly), though there is a (dodgy) looking result www.yaho.com which tried to set my homepage when I looked at it..naughty.

[voodoo]

Volume of searches, that's a good guess, but there are other things Google could be looking at. User behaviour would be the best clue. You type googl, you see the wrong results, no suggestion is offered so you retype the search query. Google might look for searches of similarly spelled words in succesion. Also, when the spelling correction is offered, they probably track the percentage of people who click that link. When a significant percentage of searchers ignore the offered correction, they might drop the link. Or perhaps they base it on some kind of comparison of the two groups (those that ingore the link and those that use it.)

voodoo

ps. speaking of spelling, this site could use a spell checker. Can't be too expensive to add, since I've seen it on some free/low budget sites.

[peewhy]

Speelchicker? nonsens! Wot duz it wont won off then four?

[humpingdan]

i have the problem that when i search for my compnay name it returns our hompage but firstly did you mean.... blah blah a different comapany with slightly different name!
our company name is also two seperate words stuck together, so yes misspelt but not reallY!
any suggestions#!

[peewhy]

The saving grace is that if they know your name, they probably know your domain!

It nay be worth a line to Google ... don't hold your breath though!

[mars9820]

Peewhy:

Of course they know your name and thus your domainname. But some people try to look up your name on the internet to read if other people have bad/good experience with your service or products.

These people are doing a deep research and are very potential customers (that is why they want to check you out anyway). If they get this option they will just click it and see where it leads to.

And thus you will get the result that these "customers" start talking with your competitor.

[peewhy]

hmm.

[novice]

A while back I did a search for WWE anthology and Google put in the did you mean WWF anthology correction. This was long after the lawsuit and the settlement that WWF had to change there name to WWE. I followed it for a while to see if it continued. Then finally gave up. I just searched WWE anthology and it didn't say did you mean WWF anthology. I wonder how long until a search of WWF anthology would would bring the did you mean WWE anthology correction. Hope I was clear with what I was writing and that I didn't break any WW TOS.