When Did Yahoo Start Automatically Inserting Spell Checked Results?

[NTR]

All,

Did I miss this? I was searching for "jewelery" (yes, I am a notoriously - sp? lol - bad speller) and I know that Yahoo offers the "did you mean" below the search box.

But instead I saw:

Tip jewelery is a common misspelling of jewelry. Results for jewelry are shown below.Did you want results for jewelery?

I looked up at the search box and "jewelery" was automatically changed to "jewelry" and the listings I saw were for the correct spelling.

Therefore if my mispelling was actually the correct spelling for what I needed (There was even an instance of "blogger" being changed to "bigger" which was... odd) I'd automatically be looking at incorrect results.

... and if I had been targeting a common mispelling in a site....

Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

[PhilC]

Yahoo! is either more clever than that, or just plain dumb. "jewellery" is the correct spelling in most English speaking countries, and only a minority spell it "jewelry". If Yahoo! geo-locates people to offer them the correct spelling for their location, then they are even more clever than your post indicates, but if they offer "jewelry" to everyone, regardless of location, then are just plain dumb.

<added>
I'm in the UK, and Yahoo! gave me the same as you. The most common spelling here is "jewellery". "jewelry" may be in the dictionary as an alternative, but it looks wrong to people here because we never see it spalt like that. So Yahoo! is just plain dumb.

[Chris_D]

Maybe it is geotargetting -

1. I'm getting the same results here in Australia for 'jewelery' on yahoo.com as Natasha & Phil both explained; but
2. On yahoo.com.au I get offered the (correct) alternative 'jewellery' (but as a 'Did you mean: jewellery' rather than the change Natasha explained)

Jewellery (Jewelry in American spelling); consists of ornamental devices worn by persons...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewellery

So - for some words, on some Yahoo's - they still offer the 'alternative' - rather than just changing the search.

And they don't even try to offer 'color' as an alternative to 'colour' on Yahoo.com.au !!!!

[Chris Boggs]

Very cool catch, Natasha. I blogged about it at the recently engaged rustybrick's SE Roundtable and discussed a couple of other Search Engines' current style. Interesting that MSN doesn't even offer a suggestion...

By the way everyone knows that the correct spelling is jewelry.

[St0n3y]

but if you search for "custom jewelery" the results DON'T change but you get the typical "Did you mean: custom jewelry" linking to a search with the CORRECT spelling!