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Why does a Google search for decreased the deficit give a spelling correction of increased the deficit? Is this some type of Google bomb? Can anyone find any other examples where Google's spelling correction is so far off?

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stop putting dents into Google's infallibility, will ya? in rough times like these, they don't want to use such nasty terms as "decreased", same goes for "deflation" which now know as "negative inflation" :) – Molly7244 Sep 2 '09 at 15:34
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closed as off topic by Gnoupi Aug 27 '10 at 8:13

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3 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Google watches what people use to correct their search and after it happens a lot, they begin suggesting it for everyone. If a lot of people search for the restaurant "shlotskis", get wrong results, go back and correct the spelling to "schlotzsky's" and begin clicking on those links, Google begins to assume that people who type "shlotskis", mean "schlotzsky's".

So technically "Did you mean" is not a spelling corrector. It's a "more users went back and corrected their original search to this other search" correction. I guess this means that after searching for "decreased the deficit" more people go back and find more relevant results with "increased the deficit".

As far as in-house Google bombs go, they do have their own sense of humor:

enter image description here

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Hmm, not sure how this is more correct than my response, oh well. – th3dude Sep 2 '09 at 17:21
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@thedude, b/c it's not really a "popular results" suggestion. It's a "more people corrected their results to this" suggestion which might be close, but not the same thing. It doesn't correct "Michael Vick" to "Michael Jackson" even though MJ is a far more popular search. – hyperslug Sep 2 '09 at 17:35
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation :) – th3dude Sep 2 '09 at 17:57
Of course that still doesn't rule out that it's a Google bomb ;) – Christian Oct 11 '09 at 18:58
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up vote 7 down vote

This happens because increased the deficit is such a popular search term and has many more results.

It's basically saying 'Hey, this query has many more results, are you sure that's not what you meant?'

Also, think of Google's 'spell check' more as a 'query check' in that it tries to aid you by pointing to a more popular search term that has more results.

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Can anyone provide other examples where this is happening? – Jeff Bloom Sep 2 '09 at 15:50
"decreased the loan" - changed to increase too. – caliban Sep 2 '09 at 17:04
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up vote 1 down vote

The word "decreased" is falling out of everyday usage rapidly - it has been supplanted in everyday usage around the world by the more popular, easier to pronounce, and more sound-bitey "reduced".

Try searching for "reduced the deficit" - you notice no such correction appear. Linguists do use Google as a sort of benchmark for what kind of words are falling out of trend.

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The spell correction for decreased seems to only applies when dealing with the word deficit. Searches for "decreased my weight" are not corrected. – Jeff Bloom Sep 2 '09 at 16:56
I hardly hear the word "decreased" used in business lingo nowadays, "reduce" and its variants are more common. Maybe it's the subject matter at hand - deficit. Same thing happened for loans. – caliban Sep 2 '09 at 17:05
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