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One of the beauties of a Google search is that even when you mistype or make a spelling mistake in your keywords, Google seems to know what you’re looking for. Google, along with other search engines is being constantly updated; learning about new terms and words people are searching for and dealing with the estimated 10% of searches which have spelling mistakes. It’s perhaps no surprise then that the company has an entire algorithm dedicated to spelling errors.

Categorising Spelling Mistakes

The first thing Google goes when looking at a misspelled error is to categorise it into two boxes – slip of the finger, or contextual.

• Slip of the finger – these are simple typos. The user is perfectly aware how to spell “pizza oven”, but their fingers got it wrong, and they entered “pozza ovn” instead. Google will recognise this as a typo, and display results for what the user was aiming for.
• Contextual errors – this is a “best guess” spelling mistake – the user doesn’t know how to spell what they’re looking for, so types in a guess into the search engine box.

Previous Approach to Misspelled Queries

Originally, Google looked at the keyboard design to try to work out what users were aiming for when they entered a misspelling. For example, if you were searching for Argentina but wrote Argentuna, Google would recognise that I is next to U on the keyboard. When trying to identify a mystery search term, Google would start by looking at letters next to each other, then gradually moving away from adjacent letters until it found one which fitted.

Deep Learning and Spelling Errors

In October 2020, Google changed the way in which its search engine deals with misspellings. The aim is to present the user with the results they are looking for, more accurately and more quickly than ever. The new approach abandons the old practice of looking at the layout of the keyboard and assuming the mistake is just a typo. Google’s new approach looks at the whole query or question which the user has typed, not just the word with the spelling mistake. It also looks for alternative words which might fit in the space and retain the meaning of the phrase. Google will often display results based on what it thinks you mean, as well as direct results for the words you typed in.

How users respond to this “did you mean to type” prompt teaches the Artificial Intelligence engine which powers the Google search. So although we’re trained to think of spelling mistakes as a bad thing, in the case of Google, you could be teaching the search engine to act smarter in the future.

For business owners, this is all good news too. Customers will still be able to find you, even when your company name or product is tricky to spell. Misspellings is something to take into account when doing your SEO – many companies buy up domain names similar to that of their own website too.