metricology

While reviewing the keywords that bring people to the Coverville Web site, I noticed two entries for the name of the host: Brian Ibbott. Unfortunately, the misspelling of his name—Brian Ibbot, with one t—was more popular in September 2009 than the correct spelling.

My knee-jerk reaction was to think, “Uh oh. People are misspelling his name. Are we accounting for that? Should we put the more popular misspelling in the meta keywords? Are people finding the wrong Brian Ibbott?”

But of course, after thinking it through, I remembered that this is what’s happening:

1. People are searching for “brian ibbot”
2. Search engines are attempting to correct the misspelling
3. People ignore the correction and click the thing they want

(Thankfully, Google also attempts to correct the typo “covervillw”, which I admit I find myself typing sometimes.)

So don’t worry if people are misspelling your name: the good search engines are smart enough to know the difference. Of course, if there is a separate Brian Ibbot out there in the world, who also has a music podcast, our strategy might be different.

For more, see Vanessa Fox’s article: Google Misspelling Match: A Tale Of Two Searches.

(Coverville is a well-respected and popular music podcast for which I do some regular traffic analysis. The host has graciously allowed me to share specific findings with you.)