Google Search Update Incorporates Korean Localization Improvements

By | 29 February, 2012

Google has announced over 40 changes to its Search technology this February, which include tweaks that improve search quality and relevance, as well as enhanced Korean localization.

An employee of Google Korea is reflected on the glass door as she walks at its office in Seoul, South Korea in this file photo. Google's latest Search update includes improvements in Korean-language queries and results. (AP Photo/ Choi Jae-gu, Yonhap)

Google says each of the changes are important, and that the engineers are continually improving search quality and usability, particularly features like related searches, sitelinks, auto-complete, UI elements, synonyms, indexing and SafeSearch.

Among the 40 feature updates are tweaks that focus on localization. For instance, YouTube now has an improved ranking system for providing more locally-relevant queries. The update also implements a more accurate per-URL country information.

Language Improvements

Language-wise, the Google update include improvements in foreign-language (non-English) synonyms, which should benefit users of localized Google versions. Closer to home, Google is implementing more organized search results for Google Korea, which better-organizes search results into news, blogs and homepage sections.

Google Korea also features an improved spelling correction system when entering Korean-language queries. ” Specifically, this change helps users who mistakenly enter Hangul queries in Latin mode or vice-versa.”

Web History

Google has also improved on its Web History feature to include additional countries. Web History now lets users from Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Morocco, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Kuwait, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Nigeria, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegowina, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Moldova, and Ghana, get personalized search results based on previous searches and sites visited. This feature is only turned on for users who are signed in to their Google accounts, and who have Web History enabled.

Improved Local Search

The latest Google Search update also improves on Google’s local search capabilities, and finds city-specific results more reliably. Google is now better-able in detecting whether a query and a document are relevant to a user’s locale.



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