Google.com now merging accented results.

now the same as .fr .be

[fatpeter]

has anyone else noticed this change. Up til now if you searched with an accent or without you got a different set of results on .com

For a while it has been that way on .fr and the other regionals that may use accents but this is the first time I see it on .com

will it stay this way?

[fatpeter]

takes me of the first page for my main keywords :(

[kittykat]

i am seeing the same thing for keywords in spanish. this is a major advance. it would be really great to be able to optimize for accented keywords without having misspelled words all over the page.

[fatpeter]

I've been trying to optimise for 4 combinations without accent and 4 with. I was first page for the 4 without but no where on the others. Now I'm between 8-12 for everything.
Just have to work a bit harder to get back on the first page! :)

[lazerzubb]

Just like to point to related thread about this [webmasterworld.com...]

I think it's a good choice to integrate it on general searches too.

[steveb]

not true for spanish ó

Totally different results.

<edit that y is supposed to be an o with an accent>

[webby2001]

Time for the German Umlaut me thinks (äüö) :-)

[kittykat]

I am getting similar results for spanish ó and o. try searching for a word with accent and without, the number of results is almost the same. as least searching from here, Mexico City

[mfagan]

Currently on Google.com:

résumé [google.com]: 360,000
resume [google.com]: 368,000
résumé -resume [google.com]: 322,000
resume -résumé [google.com]: 458,000

Whatever that means...

<added>
322,000 + 458,000 = 780,000
</added>

[steveb]

well maybe it's just me but I couldn't care less about the number of results. If one way a page ranks 7 and the other way it ranks 24, that's all that matters to me.

[kittykat]

periódico
periodico

same results

[steveb]

Not in Los Angeles on .com, totally different (except the first result).

[kittykat]

thats good to know. thanks.

[fatpeter]

All day yesterday it was merged. The day before yesterday not.

Now today they are unmerged again so they have changed it a couple of times. Interesting to see where it ends up!

[instand1]

So this change happened during the last two days?