This can easily be remedied by YOU! Just change the letters in the search criteria and DELIBERATELY misspell. Refer to this collection of letter pairs as shown in the image below. You will get much better results, guaranteed. I have seen as much as a 20% increase in VALID results.
Really interesting! Have you found that these ocr errors are somewhat consistent from site to site, or do some sites exhibit some of these errors more than others?
Also, how did you get the 20% number?
Bill, It varies from site to site. Some seem to be better than others. I got the 20% number from my own search statistics. I took a couple of my surnames in my tree spelled exactly correctly and then started varying the letters per the letter pairs that I mentioned and it cam to be about 20%. It depends on the complexity of the surname and the letters that make up that surname.