Google brings new autocorrect and name search enhancements to Search

A few neat little additions to Google Search today.

Localized Google Suggest.

Instead of seeing results from across the globe when you search for a particular item, you’ll see versions specifically tailored to your location. This means if your in Ontario Canada and you search for London coffee shops, you’re more likely to see results tailored to London Ontario than London, UK. Shame if you are though, London has some great coffee shops.

Improved Name Search.

Lets be frank here, we’re constantly searching for people on Google nowadays, frequently we may just catch their name once and we’re off searching away to discover a little bit more about them. Unsurprisingly, we often get the spelling of the person’s name wrong, fortunately today Google announces “big strides in correcting misspelled names.”

According to a post announcing the improvements, Google says:

“Our new technology is based on the concept that people often know something else about the person besides the approximate spelling of his name. People often include other terms such as “composer” or “lawyer sparta wisconsin” in their search query, which provides valuable context to help us narrow the range of possibilities for the spelling correction. We use these additional descriptive words to offer you better suggestions.”

For now this enhancement is available only  in the U.S. Other parts of the world and other languages coming soon.

Spelling auto-correct

They’re not messing around now. Google is so confident in it’s “did you mean” tool, it’s getting rid of it entirely in some cases and taking you direct to the correct search page. So you search for “Airprt”, Google will take you direct to Airport’s search results – fortunately it does offer you the ability to go to the “Airprt” page if you so wish. This is available in over 31 languages too, no small feat.