Nestoria Blog

Fellow Nestorpeople,

we thought we’d revisit a topic we first discussed some time ago: placename misspellings. Today we thought we’d list some of the trends we see in how some property searchers mangle place names.

First a note on how we deal with place names we can’t recognise. We do our best to ‘auto correct’ common misspellings, of which there are two types: typos and just plain bad spelling. Typos typically happen because someone mistakenly hits the wrong key on his keyboard, while bad spelling is simply because they simply don’t know how to correctly spell a placename. As an example you’ll see that if you search for aproperty in Noting Hill (note: one t, not two) or aproperty in Botting Hill (B is next to N on a keyboard), in both cases you are redirected to properties in Notting Hill. In each case the user just magically lands on the page he ‘meant’ not the page he actually typed. Like all technology our algorithms aren’t perfect, so let us know f you find examples of our auto-correction not working as you would hope.

Now on to some of the common problems we see from UK property searchers:

• Adding ‘E’. Examples: “Bridgenorth” instead of Bridgnorth or “Edgeware” instead of Edgeware.
• Dropping ‘E’. Example “Folkstone” instead of Folkestone.
• Double ‘H’. Examples: “Southhampton” instead of Southampton.
• mixing ‘LE’ and ‘EL’. Examples: “Wimbeldon” instead of Wimbledon.
• Phonetic confusion. Examples: “Wry” instead of the correct Rye, “Fullham” instead of Fulham or “Isle of White” rather than Isle of Wight.
• Bad spacing. Example: “New Castle” instead of Newcastle.
• I’ll make no attempt to discuss place names in Wales. All rules are out the window.
• and finally, our old favourite; no one can spell Marylebone.

On the topic of odd placenames, we leave you with one interesting thought: who knew there are two Hollywoods in the UK?

Happy spelling.