Getting a single word wrong in a search query can turn a productive use of your time into a mess of irrelevant results. Microsoft is aiming to fix that by introducing Speller100, an AI-based spelling checker for Bing.
What Is Speller100?
The software giant announced Speller100 on the Microsoft Research Blog. The company notes that getting a search term correct on the first pass is very important, even if a typo slipped in by accident.
When a user makes a typo in a search query, it can usually spell disaster for the results. If the search engine doesn't know what the user meant, it may make an incorrect guess about what the word was meant to be—or worse, ignore it altogether.
Unfortunately, such an occurrence would spell disaster for your search results. A small error in your search term can send the results in a wildly different direction than what you wanted, which means more frustrating tinkering with your search terms.
Microsoft aims to fix this by using its AI-powered Speller100 to double-check your search terms. If you've ever mistyped something while searching on Google, you'll have noticed the little recommendation that the search engine gives you to make sure you're looking for the right thing.
Speller100 for Microsoft will do something similar, but with the bonus of working with over 100 different languages. Speller100 will utilize machine-learning AI to ensure that the spell checker evolves to better meet user expectations.
Microsoft believes this is an important venture because it calculated that 15 percent of search queries contain a spelling mistake somehow. Allowing Bing to redirect the user to where they want to go intelligently helps save time and improve the user experience.
When Microsoft used Speller100 to help with Bing searches, it came across some fascinating results:
The number of pages with no results reduced by up to 30%. The number of times users had to manually reformulate their query reduced by 5%. The number of times users clicked on our spelling suggestion increased from single digits to 67%. The number of times users clicked on any item on the page went from single digits to 70%.
As such, if you use Bing regularly, keep your eyes peeled for more competent spelling suggestions and better results overall.
Making a Better Bing With Speller100
If you've got clumsy fingers, you may want to start searching with Bing from now on. With the new Speller100 system, those sneaky typos will get ironed out for a better overall search experience.
If you're from Australia, you may find yourself using Bing more often in the future. At the time of writing, Google is threatening to leave Australia and take its services with it, but Microsoft is keen to step up to the plate and fill the spot that Google will leave behind.
Image Credit: Sharaf Maksumov / Shutterstock.com