3 ms·

For the vast majority of users, things like spelling correction are a huge help. Roughly 10% of all queries are misspelled. Switching the default to "search for

For the vast majority of users, things like spelling correction are a huge help. Roughly 10% of all queries are misspelled. Switching the default to "search for exactly what I typed" would hurt those users and lead to more spam and malware for the average user. We try to find the balance that helps users the most, and searching for a term with "term" or the literal mode provides an escape hatch for power users.

SCdF 15y ago
I use Google as a spellcheck quite a bit, because it's generally better at working out what my tortured attempt at spelling really means than dictionary sites / apps. I wonder how many of the 10% are intentional.
smackfu 15y ago
If only Google had some sort of "account" system that could store user-specific preferences...
- Sargis 15y ago
  It'd be better if we could just append a "v" after the URL to make verbatim searches. That way we can bookmark it and there will be no need to be logged in.
  - botker 15y ago
    You can. Append: &tbs=li:1 Ugly, but it works.
    - noibl 15y ago
      Heh, I just found this too and added it to my default omnibox search in Chrome. You may have to add your own to the list: hXXp://www.google.com/search?q=%s&le=en&start=0&tbs=li:1
timtadh 15y ago
How do you tell the difference (for mis-spelled words) between people doing an actual search and people spell checking a word? It could be that a significant percentage of the 10% are not "search queries" but "spelling queries"
JoshTriplett 15y ago
Personally, I like the previous "did you mean" behavior; if Google thinks I misspelled a word, or that I want a synonym, by all means give me the alternative, but by default I want the exact query I searched for, because more often than not I really did mean what I searched for rather than what Google thought I meant.
- daveungerer 15y ago
  Can't agree enough this. I'm pretty sure user interface research has shown that it's incredibly frustrating to users when you tell a computer to do one thing and it does something else. The suggestions are helpful, but it should default to what I tell the fucking thing to search for!
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    If the computer successfully guesses exactly the thing you wanted and does that instead of what you said, it can make you marginally more happy than a "did you mean", since it avoids the reaction of "well why didn't you just do it then?". However, if the computer guesses wrong, that will cause significantly more frustration to the user. This disproportionate amount of annoyance means that the computer must guess correctly far more often than it guesses wrong. Unfortunately, Google's current system frequently guesses wrong, and then compounds those incorrect guesses by using them by default, taunting the user with their original search.
    - moultano 15y ago
      That's been our observation as well, and we've tried to constrain launches in exactly that way. Techniques that can fail in a way that disrespects the query have to have a much much higher win to loss ratio in order to launch. What I think we're understanding now is that something that fails 1% of the time, might not fail for just 1% of queries, it might fail for 1% of the users and work perfectly for the rest, and that small set can be really unhappy as a result. This is one small step in the direction of fixing that, but it's an issue we're paying close attention to, thanks in part to the feedback we've seen on HN. We very much want to avoid systematic failures like this, and if technical queries are a blind spot then please send them over whenever you see them. My email is in my profile and I'll make sure they get routed appropriately, and I tend to watch threads about Google trying to get good examples to debug.
kitsune_ 15y ago
I think the algorithm does too many "magic" things lately. I've noticed this when I had some search queries for "flask" (python micro web framework) and some programming related input and most of the returned results were about "flash".
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  We're always trying to find the right balance. The nice thing about this change is that it gives people an escape hatch if we get it wrong. In theory, I could imagine we could look at the corresponding data to improve the balance in the future too.
  - strictfp 15y ago
    Could you not add a hacker mode? Put it at google.com/h or something and remove all the cuddly fuzziness that drives us power users completely mad. I'm sure your intentions are good and that the latest changes are helpful for many or most users. But I for one have always enjoyed Googles assumption that the user is intelligent and therefore never autocorrected me, countrary to for instance MS office. Suggesting corrections does not interrupt my flow and are generally helpful. Auto-corrections are in great part highly disruptive for me. Please don't deviate from this very sound principle, at least not for us power users.
    - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
      I think of this literal mode as pretty close to the hacker mode. Most of the time our query rewriting is an improvement, but we wanted it to be very quick (just a couple clicks) to go into hacker mode if we get things wrong. My hunch is that someone could a search shortcut for verbatim mode, but if you used it enough you'd find that you missed the query improvements.
      - waqf 15y ago
        Can I enable literal mode permanently with a cookie? Otherwise, you better make sure that going into literal mode is fewer clicks than, say, going to DuckDuckGo.
anjc 15y ago
Spelling correction has nothing to do with "" being worse than +. I think a lot of us would welcome spelling suggestions while we're using our + operator.
rhizome 15y ago
For that 10% figure to be meaningful, we'd need to know how many people are trying to search for something precise and not receiving it.
bambax 15y ago
Although now is not the time to be picky (to be thankful, rather), why not simply let logged in users default to literal search, while still displaying the "did you mean" suggestions somewhere on the page...?
ars 15y ago
All I really want is for google to tell me when it didn't search for what I wrote. I put a word in the search, I expect it in the results - even if the result has a low page rank. If you want to default considering some words optional, that's fine. But say that above the search results.

SCdF 15y ago

I use Google as a spellcheck quite a bit, because it's generally better at working out what my tortured attempt at spelling really means than dictionary sites / apps. I wonder how many of the 10% are intentional.

smackfu 15y ago

If only Google had some sort of "account" system that could store user-specific preferences...

Sargis 15y ago
It'd be better if we could just append a "v" after the URL to make verbatim searches. That way we can bookmark it and there will be no need to be logged in.
- botker 15y ago
  You can. Append: &tbs=li:1 Ugly, but it works.
  - noibl 15y ago
    Heh, I just found this too and added it to my default omnibox search in Chrome. You may have to add your own to the list: hXXp://www.google.com/search?q=%s&le=en&start=0&tbs=li:1

timtadh 15y ago

How do you tell the difference (for mis-spelled words) between people doing an actual search and people spell checking a word? It could be that a significant percentage of the 10% are not "search queries" but "spelling queries"

JoshTriplett 15y ago

Personally, I like the previous "did you mean" behavior; if Google thinks I misspelled a word, or that I want a synonym, by all means give me the alternative, but by default I want the exact query I searched for, because more often than not I really did mean what I searched for rather than what Google thought I meant.

daveungerer 15y ago
Can't agree enough this. I'm pretty sure user interface research has shown that it's incredibly frustrating to users when you tell a computer to do one thing and it does something else. The suggestions are helpful, but it should default to what I tell the fucking thing to search for!
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  If the computer successfully guesses exactly the thing you wanted and does that instead of what you said, it can make you marginally more happy than a "did you mean", since it avoids the reaction of "well why didn't you just do it then?". However, if the computer guesses wrong, that will cause significantly more frustration to the user. This disproportionate amount of annoyance means that the computer must guess correctly far more often than it guesses wrong. Unfortunately, Google's current system frequently guesses wrong, and then compounds those incorrect guesses by using them by default, taunting the user with their original search.
  - moultano 15y ago
    That's been our observation as well, and we've tried to constrain launches in exactly that way. Techniques that can fail in a way that disrespects the query have to have a much much higher win to loss ratio in order to launch. What I think we're understanding now is that something that fails 1% of the time, might not fail for just 1% of queries, it might fail for 1% of the users and work perfectly for the rest, and that small set can be really unhappy as a result. This is one small step in the direction of fixing that, but it's an issue we're paying close attention to, thanks in part to the feedback we've seen on HN. We very much want to avoid systematic failures like this, and if technical queries are a blind spot then please send them over whenever you see them. My email is in my profile and I'll make sure they get routed appropriately, and I tend to watch threads about Google trying to get good examples to debug.

kitsune_ 15y ago

I think the algorithm does too many "magic" things lately. I've noticed this when I had some search queries for "flask" (python micro web framework) and some programming related input and most of the returned results were about "flash".

Matt_Cutts 15y ago
We're always trying to find the right balance. The nice thing about this change is that it gives people an escape hatch if we get it wrong. In theory, I could imagine we could look at the corresponding data to improve the balance in the future too.
- strictfp 15y ago
  Could you not add a hacker mode? Put it at google.com/h or something and remove all the cuddly fuzziness that drives us power users completely mad. I'm sure your intentions are good and that the latest changes are helpful for many or most users. But I for one have always enjoyed Googles assumption that the user is intelligent and therefore never autocorrected me, countrary to for instance MS office. Suggesting corrections does not interrupt my flow and are generally helpful. Auto-corrections are in great part highly disruptive for me. Please don't deviate from this very sound principle, at least not for us power users.
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    I think of this literal mode as pretty close to the hacker mode. Most of the time our query rewriting is an improvement, but we wanted it to be very quick (just a couple clicks) to go into hacker mode if we get things wrong. My hunch is that someone could a search shortcut for verbatim mode, but if you used it enough you'd find that you missed the query improvements.
    - waqf 15y ago
      Can I enable literal mode permanently with a cookie? Otherwise, you better make sure that going into literal mode is fewer clicks than, say, going to DuckDuckGo.

anjc 15y ago

Spelling correction has nothing to do with "" being worse than +. I think a lot of us would welcome spelling suggestions while we're using our + operator.

rhizome 15y ago

For that 10% figure to be meaningful, we'd need to know how many people are trying to search for something precise and not receiving it.

bambax 15y ago

Although now is not the time to be picky (to be thankful, rather), why not simply let logged in users default to literal search, while still displaying the "did you mean" suggestions somewhere on the page...?

ars 15y ago

All I really want is for google to tell me when it didn't search for what I wrote. I put a word in the search, I expect it in the results - even if the result has a low page rank. If you want to default considering some words optional, that's fine. But say that above the search results.