Stop search engines assuming you can’t spell

I have to admit that my typing is poor. Rarely do I post an article that doesn’t need at least one correction after it goes live. I am therefore mostly grateful that search engines seek to correct my poor typing by suggesting alternatives.

But there are many, many times that the search engines jump too quickly to the conclusion that I mistyped my query. I am sure that happens to us all.

There is an easy way to fix this which works on both Google and Bing, which is to use the “+” operator before your search. Try typing in “searche” into either engine and you get results for the phrase “search”. Bing, though, is more helpful if you actually WERE looking for results with an “e” on the end, by telling you that it changed the results.

It also lets you rerun the search again without the assumption. When you press that button is adds a “+” symbol to the search phrase and different results appear.

Infact, Google has the same operator, but it is much harder to find intuitively, so you just have to add it.

So that’s the tip.

Now did anyone notice the bug in bing’s plus operator search results?