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You know when you misspell something in Google, they show a "Did you mean" with the correct spelling. Historically, Google has told us that even though they put that Did you mean in red, people still ignore it. So a a month or so ago, they decided to test enhancing the Did you mean feature. The enhanced version showed the correct spelling for the two top results and the remainder of the results were for the wrong spelling.
Here is an example of a search for matt cuttz versus the correct spelling of matt cutts.
A WebmasterWorld thread took notice that this seems to always be the case now. Google seems to always be showing the new way of showing Did you mean results. Tedster added that he has been noticing an influx of "no results" found. Here is an example for a search on mesothmioma, which is correctly spelled mesothelioma.
The above example might be a bug in Google's spell checking software. Outside of the bug, it does seem like the enhanced version of Did you mean, is sticking around for a while.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
seoz87
01/29/2009 08:51 am
this is old...
Barry Schwartz
01/29/2009 09:03 am
seo87, please read the blog post.
Dave
01/29/2009 02:21 pm
This has moved me down to no 3 for a key search term. The loss of income on adsense is about 35% as a result
Phil Bradley
01/29/2009 02:28 pm
The problem is of course compounded if you actually want the alternative spelling. Perhaps we need to have a British, American and Google dictionary now? It's also not possible to affect the results using personalisation - you can't manipulate your personal results to get your preference right to the top of the page above the Google preference. Rather makes a mockery of that functionality.
Rob Abdul
01/31/2009 09:13 pm
Mr Phil my sentiments exactly, bravo!
Geoff
05/02/2009 12:39 am
I'm with Phil and Rob - this annoys me everytime I search for something like rumours - it tries to correct my spelling - wth Google