ABBREVIATION HANDLING IN WEB SEARCH

A method for handling abbreviations in web queries includes building a dictionary of possible word expansions for potential abbreviations related to query terms received and anticipated to be received by a search engine; accepting a query including an abbreviation from a searching user, where a probability of finding a most probably-correct expansion in the dictionary is a first probability, and a probability that the expansion is the abbreviation itself is a second probability; determining a ratio between the first and second probabilities; expanding the abbreviation in accordance with the most probably-correct expansion when the ratio is above a first threshold value; and highlighting the abbreviation with a suggested expansion of the most probably-correct expansion for the user so that the user may accept the suggested expansion when the ratio is between a second, lower threshold value and the first threshold value.