Google Auto-Correct is killing my site | Hacker News Reader

Google Auto-Correct is killing my site

5 pointschintan3916 comments

I run a site https://birthde.com. But when you google the "Birthde"(https://www.google.com/#q=birthde) it Auto-Correct changes it to "Birthday". And I dont get any traffic in.

Do I have to change to a better domain name? or Should the google change something for such senario?

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I just checked it on DuckDuckGo,Yahoo,Bing https://duckduckgo.com/?q=birthde

https://in.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0SO82JB9G1TPxoAHL.7...

https://www.bing.com/search?q=birthde&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=al...

And they all shows correct results.

No comments on the Google situation but a few on the idea itself...

1. Facebook reminds me of people's birthday already via its site as well as email reminders.

2. Google Calendar allows alerts of said events (so does iCal). This also integrates with my Google Contacts already.

3. Integrated apps like EasilyDo and many others also display these reminders if needed I believe.

I'm not sure I understand the value proposition of paying for something like this, particularly if I have to manually punch all those birthdays in when there are so many free solutions all over the place.

How much time ago you uploaded your site? Commonly, a few months after a site is launched, Google understands that's essentially a new word.

I started it on Feb 2014. Almost 3 months.

I'll recommend you to wait just a little bit. Commonly, many domains that becomes funny products later starts with an invented word, and Google later has no troubles understanding that's actually a new word.

And just to be sure, add your site to Google Webmasters and try to put the requested name in the title tag, too.

Thanks for the tips.Will do.

How many people do you think are searching specifically for your site's name who wouldn't think to put the ".com" on it? It might be fewer than you think.

You won't automatically rank highly for "birthday reminders" as it's a highly contested keyword.

As an aside: What does your product offer which I can't achieve with Google Calendar?

Actually I have never used google calendar.But Birthde sends SMS reminders which I am sure not present in Google Calendar.

They are. I can configure Google Calendar to send me SMS reminders about any event I choose at any time before it, and can have it recur yearly automatically - which does what your product does, and allows synchronisation to any mobile devices by calendar subscription.

You'll probably need a different domain name if you want to rank for the name of your product.

Google has little reason to change anything - chances are most people who type in 'birthde' are looking for 'birthday'.

Cant google be smart about it? Like now google knows Birthde.com is a Brand/Product name. So cant it stop auto correcting.

I have worked a lot on this domain for SEO.Different Domain doesnt seem like an option

Don't worry. Really. Google IS that smart to understand and learn a new word. It worked several times before not just for you or me. Think in any domain that's just an invented word and you'll see that Google learnt their name. It happened to me, too: I've registered "angrybirders.com" and in the beginning, Google said "Did you mean 'Angry Birds'... At the end, if you perform a search, you'll see that the domain was correctly detected and no" Did you mean?" appears on the page.

You don't have a good ranking even for terms that don't autocorrect. "birthde app", and "birthde site" don't give good results. It is just difficult to remember and hard to find when you forget the name, which people will do for such a periodic thing as birthdays.

"birthde app" and "birthde site" are still autocorrecting to "birthday app" and "birthday site"

I guess that as people search for [birthde] and click the "Did you mean 'birthde'?" link then Google will learn that people typing [birthde] are not misstyping [birthday].

Seems frustrating though.

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal. Steve.

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