Web Toastie

1 | Andy

January 14th, 2010 at 1:56 pm

It’s looking increasingly like this is a search volume issue. Cheers for posting the stats, I’ll link through to them from UT.

2 | Google Autocorrects UK English Spelling - Unmemorable Title

January 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm

[...] I’m not the only person to notice the creeping Americanisation, but there’s no concensus on why it’s been done. Dodgy spell checking? Cultural imperialism? Search volumes? [...]

3 | Neil Yeomans

January 14th, 2010 at 2:01 pm

Fairly sure that data can’t be trusted. Even Google’s contradicting themselves with their own keyword data:

Google AdWords Suggest, Exact Match, United Kingdom, December 09 Local Search Volume:

Search Engine Optimisation: 33,100
Search Engine Optimization: 22,200

This data is showing the “search engine optimisation” had 33% higher search volume. Wordtracker UK data also shows more people using “optimisation”.

4 | Showing Results For Search Engine Optimization? But I Searched For Search Engine Optimisation | Hobo

January 14th, 2010 at 2:02 pm

[...] Update 5 – Perhaps an interesting comparison on the two terms by Kieron Hughes – see search engine optimisation trends: [...]

5 | Peter Handley

January 14th, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Even if this is a search volume issue, what was wrong with the previous “Did you mean…” I think its entirely wrong to be changing the usage of language that someone has entered into a search – if this change remains permanent and becomes more widespread, this is going to create a lot of work for webmasters and SEO’s alike.

I’m hoping that this is a test, but it remains to be seen – now that I’ve clicked I wanted to see the s version several times, it no longer auto-corrects my search for me on the specific “Search Engine Optimisation” term, but it is still changing for me on “search engine optimisation company” and various other permutations

6 | Nichola Stott

January 14th, 2010 at 2:21 pm

Contrary to popular belief the use of “ize” or “zation”, whatever, isn’t an Americanisation, nor is it incorrect for the English language. I was completely surprised to discover this myself. I spent a lot of time researching this for a post on the samer topic over st SEO Chicks, which you might find interesting. Hopefully.
http://www.seo-chicks.com/1387/americanize-this-google-changing-my-search-spelling-by-default.html

What does suck – spelling aside; is that its not for Google to dictate how and when “cultural change” occurs.

7 | Neil Yeomans

January 14th, 2010 at 2:30 pm

Hey Nichola, I bet the Queen doesn’t use “ize” & “ization”.

8 | James Royal-Lawson

January 14th, 2010 at 2:51 pm

Surely this is a case of Google “correcting” the spelling based on the number of matches for the alternative term. There are just over a billion matches for “Search Engine Optimization” yet about 3.5 million for “Search Engine Optimisation”.

Personally I don’t like the switch from “did you mean” to “here’s what we think you mean without even asking”. This is behaviour shaping, rather than just correcting common spelling mistakes.

9 | Nichola Stott

January 14th, 2010 at 3:07 pm

@Neil – I bet she doesn’t either. Neither do many of the UK online press, apart from the Times Higher Educational Supplement apparently. Though it seems like many British searchers do, which is possibly a sign of lazy-assed spelling or increasing internationalisation of culture. Putting all this aside; my frustration is that it is not for Google to dictate a cultural change, regardless of history, culture or eytemology of language. Not sure we have any choice in that though, but we will be the ones that have to jump to this (in the way we work) if this sticks.

10 | Neil Yeomans

January 15th, 2010 at 9:34 am

@Nichola Shouldn’t that be “lazy-arsed spelling?” :P

Anyway, looks like the SERPs are back to normal this morning, and so they should be.

11 | Nichola Stott

January 15th, 2010 at 9:42 am

@Neil. LOL! I thought you might like that. Yes, great to see things are back to normal. I can’t help but think they were just pulling our strings. Cheaper and less effort than a bucket test eh?

12 | Thomas

January 15th, 2010 at 8:59 pm

I always wondered about the difference between the optimisation and optimization…I guess it was only a matter of time:)

13 | Search engine optimisation, optimization and SEO » malcolm coles

January 17th, 2010 at 3:43 pm

[...] all been worrying about Google forcing us to search for search engine optimization when we want to search for search engine [...]

14 | How Spelling Variations Affect SEM | expertSEM

January 25th, 2010 at 5:18 pm

[...] variant). Most likely it was Google tweaking algorithms and making the usual updates. However, a post on Web Toastie found a correlation between search volume for these spelling variations and the SERP [...]

15 | AKP

January 26th, 2010 at 12:04 pm

That seems like a very wrong thing to do. A big world wide search engine most respect the different language variations around the world. With that said, i would say that the the most common spelling is “Optimization” also in Scandinavia.

16 | Mike Skadeservice

January 28th, 2010 at 4:42 am

So my observation is right the search engine optimization things is really on rise, I am expecting a great boom of it i the year or the next year!

17 | Florida SEO

February 2nd, 2010 at 10:07 pm

I have noticed that the long version of seo (search engine optimization) trend has gone down for the last 8 years or so where as the short term “SEO” has been on a consistent rise.

Anyways, wonderful blog post! Informational and well written. I think I could learn a thing or two from the way you set up your blog. I have subscribed to your rss feed and bookmarked your blog on delicious. I have a blog about SEO and social media that you are welcome to comment on if you find something that intrigues you.

18 | web design companies

February 6th, 2010 at 5:22 am

Thanks for posting about this, I would love to read more about this topic.I ‘m a community member at http://www.karmicksolutions.com / Karmick Solutions is web design companies one of the leading Indian Web Designers. Other than designing the web we also excel in Web development, Multimedia, E-Commerce and SEO services.

19 | Why Google Just Can’t Suggest

May 3rd, 2010 at 11:57 am

[...] Kieron Hughes [...]