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Google Makes Suggestions Location-Aware, Improves Spelling Correction

by Terrence O'Brien on April 18, 2010 at 01:30 PM

Google Suggest improves spelling
Google, it seems, is never content with its search product. The Big G is constantly tweaking, updating and generally improving the results and suggestions it offers. The latest round of improvements both makes Google Suggest location-aware, and extends the spelling correction feature to cover common names as well as other languages.

Google Suggest will now use the city of origin in order to provide better suggested queries. For instance, if you type "bart" into the search bar, and you live in San Francisco, the suggestions relate to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Here in New York, the first suggestion is "bartending school."

The other big change comes to Google's spelling correction features. Now, Google will look at other common searches to help complete and filter searches for names. While a search for "Bradd Pit" is easy to catch, a search for "Jonn Doe," the name of your local physician, might prove useless. Google is now suggesting common modifiers to names, so that, when you type "jonn doe," it might suggest "Jonn Doe Doctor."

The spelling correction can now identify searches in other languages, as well. The New York Times demonstrated this by searching for "payn au chocolattte," which Google immediately understood as "pain au chocolat," or chocolate croissants. [From: Official Google Blog, via: New York Times]

Tags: google, google suggest, GoogleSuggest, location-based, search, spelling, top, web

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