Comments on: SEO Advice: Spell-check your web site

By: Allan

Allan — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 03:53:00 +0000

I tried out the one strike and you’re out system. I started reading pages from a few websites and never got past about 20 words on any of them. All because so many people follow Webster. Webster as we all know deliberately misspelt words for one simple reason, he hated the English.

By: ezra abrams

ezra abrams — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:54:54 +0000

not reeding misspelt post just plain silly.
Of course, one has to use one’s judgement; one or two typos should not disqualify a well written post; one, also, has to consider the level of formality; blog posts are somewhat below the level of a formal document like a company website.

Ezra S Abrams

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:12:11 +0000

I have used this website spell check that Maek suggested.

http://www.furtheronline.co.uk/site-spellcheck.aspx

It is really good i would definately recommend!

By: rup

rup — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:21:27 +0000

I am really surprised to know when I got informed that spell mistakes can make your site ranking down. But can any one let me know why words of regional language or mnemonics or specific Jargon’s treated as spell mistakes.
On my site http://www.astrodesire.com , I have specific Astrology jargon’s used is this a spell mistake ???

By: Mike Sellars

Mike Sellars — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:28:17 +0000

I’m one of the few proof readers who’s actually quite fond of spell-checking software (I find it a great way of clearing the decks before I start proofreading in earnest), but it’s very important to be aware of the kinds of ‘word confusion’ spell checkers (and even some people) tend to overlook.

Here’s a list of easily confused words:

Accept/Except
Affect/Effect
A lot/Allot
All Ready/Already
All Together/Altogether
Alter/Altar
Ascent/Assent
Breath/Breathe
Canvas/Canvass
Complement/Compliment
Course/Coarse
Council/Counsel
Decent/Descent/Dissent
Desert/Dessert
Elicit/Illicit
Eminent/Imminent
Flaunt/Flout
Forego/Forgo
Forth/Fourth
Grisly/Grizzly
Hoard/Horde
Incidence/Incidents
Its/It’s
Lead/Led
Loath/Loathe
Lose/Loose
Palate/Palette
Passed/Past
Pedal/Peddle
Plain/Plane
Precede/Proceed
Principal/Principle
Proscribe/Prescribe
Rain/Rein/Reign
Stationary/Stationery
Their/There/They’re
Weather/Whether
Who’s/Whose
Your/You’re

Hope you find the list useful, and thank you for a great blog post.

Kind regards,
Mike

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:16:41 +0000

And from the first paragraph of the top paid ad site on google for “website spell checker”

There’s to need to check each page individually, InSite will discover all of your pages automatically.

which should presumably read “There’s no need…” spelling is not everything

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:47:16 +0000

Many of the browsers now incorporate spell check so it should be much easier for everyone to catch their own mistakes.

If I am shopping online I figure that if a company does not have the time to present a professional website, then they don’t really want my business.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:22:29 +0000

Spell check is usually a pretty reliable source for most documents and such, but it has a tendency to not catch certain things (such as different types of spellings of words; their, there, they’re) but for the most part that shouldn’t be spell checker’s problem.

I use the spell check built in with my Fire Fox!

By: Emily Johnson

Emily Johnson — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:28:15 +0000

Hi Matt,
It’s always great to read your posts. I would like you to write a post on how to analyse a website giving links to tools to be used and also to find strengths and weakness and optimization recommendations. How to document for a site as a website analyser.

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:09:31 +0000

Hello, Matt.

Just one point of nitpickery here (and yes, spell check software will flag this neologism) that I feel compelled to point out since no one else did.

Mind you, this is a question of grammar rather than spelling, but as a professional nitpicker, I feel compelled to mention that the sentence

“There’s also the spell-check on webforms that the Google Toolbar offers, and there are numerous plugins for stuff like WordPress that does spell checking.”

should read:

“There’s also the spell-check on webforms that the Google Toolbar offers; and there are numerous plugins for stuff like WordPress that do spell checking.”

A great post though; if you want someone to do business with you, it’s imperative that you can demonstrate at least a minimal level of professionalism by bothering to use spell check.