Mobile Phone search characters
With the advent of text messaging, 3G internet applications and search engine results to mobiles, several adaptions have had to be made to accommodate characters
that are unavailable easily on a phone keypad. True, most of them are available as special characters but since this takes time and disrupts the texter’s flow, ways
around the lack of easy access to these characters have been found, sometimes ingeniously.
For example, previously, one would often replace the word “and” with the ampersand symbol “&”. This is fine on a standard keyboard where it usually appears above
the number 7 but on a telephone keypad it is only found under special characters.
We have taken steps to ensure that wherever possible, mobile phone users will be able to get relevant results from Stayinbritain. Since the & sign is extensively
used instead of “and” as in Bed & Breakfast or B&B. Texters have had to replace this with the plus symbol, as in Bed+breakfast, bed + breakfast, b+b and b + b.
In some cases, the “and” or “&” have been dropped completely and a search of “bed breakfast” or BB is used instead. In other examples, texters used “bed . breakfast”
, “b.b” or “bed – breakfast”, “b-b”, “b – b” to split the words. Whilst these last examples (bb, b.b, b-b etc) also return some non-accommodation results, there are
sufficient front page results to make it seem worthwhile and to encourage the use of these alternatives.
These are all valid search terms as far as mobile users are concerned and each of them requires a valid set of results as a response from the website developers
and the search engines. The Google Artificial Intelligence system certainly seems to handle these variations very well and the use of the new “browser habits”
facility may further assist it to return the right results for the individual user. Yahoo handles them slightly less well. BB returns several accommodation sites
on Google but only sponsored results show on Yahoo, which seems a bit strange as you would think that if it can recognise the term for sponsored links, it could
apply the same logic to the organic results. A smilar set of results show for b-b with Google performing better than the competition.
As mobile phone users increase the use of these abbreviations and as accommodation site owners become aware of this need, the accurracy of search results returned
by the search engines can be expected to get more and more accurate and relevant.
** STAYINBRITAIN.CO.UK SUPPORTS MOBILE PHONE USERS **
We cannot guarantee the visual images or textual description of the quality of the properties displayed on our Internet or printed pages and therefore cannot assume any responsibility for the accuracy or validity of claims or descriptions given by any property owner on this web site or in any other locations on the internet. We strongly suggest that information is sought directly from the owners. Any views or opinions stated within our web sites or other locations on the internet are soley those of the property owner and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Reserve It Ltd. We always reserve the right to remove, without compensation, any establishment that fails to provide the quality of service claimed in their StayinBritain advertisment.