New Google Patent App: Systems and methods for improving search quality

[msgraph]

Systems and methods are disclosed for improving search quality. Search queries are expanded using a variety of linguistic techniques. For example, the words in a query can be supplemented with related words obtained from a database of compound words, inflectional forms, and/or orthographic variations. The expanded queries can be used to perform searches for responsive documents. A document index can be expanded using similar techniques.

Systems and methods for improving search quality

Focuses primarily on German search queries.

9. The method of claim 1, in which the query is written in German.

However....

For instance, while several examples are provided in the context of a German language search engine, it will be appreciated that the general principles described herein may be applied to other languages, embodiments, and applications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention

[Mel]

This is IMO a fundamental improvement which may already have been incorporated to some extent. I note for instance that the site ranking #1 for expert search engine optimization also ranks #1 for the term search engine optimisation even though that spelling does not seem to be found on the ranking page.