Google with Incorrect Spelling

Just the other day, I was googling for “strata conference” information. I noticed that I had mistakenly typed “starta” instead of “strata“. I proceeded to backspace the incorrect letters and fix the spelling. Later in the day, I also noticed that I frequently mistype the letters “ar” and “ra”. That got me thinking.

Does Google Know How Poorly I Spell?

Since Google Instant was released in 2010, Google is now able to track every keystroke I type into the Google Search box. Thus, Google will know when I hit the backspace key. Using some data analysis, Google should be able to answer the following questions:

  1. What words are most commonly misspelled in Google searches? I would guess the answer would be a good indicator of the most commonly misspelled words in general.
  2. What words do I misspell the most often?
  3. How many letters get typed after the misspelling?
  4. What percentage of Google searches are completed without a backspace?
  5. Do people in certain parts of the world/country have better spelling?
  6. How often do people backspace a correctly spelled word, just to then spell it incorrectly? This could be amusing. I would also like to know what words.

Misspelling Don’t Matter

As it turns out, the misspellings don’t really matter that much. Google is smart enough to fix many spelling errors.

What other spelling questions could Google answer?