Google spelling in European languages

Major change since last update: ö no longer = oe

[instand1]

Did any person saw this change since the last update: special signs, e.g. "ö" in German could always be written "oe", if the special letter was not available on the keyboard. Till recently Google treated them alike: The SERPs were the same for both ways of writing. But now Google does give different results!
Example today in www2:
"Glück" 2,290,000 results
"Glueck" 113,000 results

I wonder whether this change has an effect on other languages with "special letters", e.g. Scandinavian?

[stever]

instand1, I think they have been doing that for a while. I have some pages which are aimed at one or the other and searches for them have always had different results...

[instand1]

I have some keywords with special letters and till recently the #1 position in ranking and all the others on the first page had been the same. But now they are different!
In google.de and google.at the results are today still the same for
"öß" and "oess", but in www.google.com, www3.google.com, www2.google.com they are different!
Please check it for any keyword with many results, e.g. Österreich against Oesterreich (Austria)!
I wonder whether this difference between the regional googles and the "normal" google has been there all the time? Will it still be there after this Google dance is over?

[jomaxx]

I've always seen different results when searching with special characters such as ç, é and è.

[vitaplease]

this recent thread on accents might also be interesting:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[instand1]

Thank you, Vitaplease for the hint (the other thread),
Jomaxx:

I've always seen different results when searching with special characters such as ç, é and è.

Did you see differences in this respect between google.com and the regional googles .be and .fr? Or did you make your observation only in one of the regional googles?

[stever]

instand1, for a search I cover which is ö and oe, results have been different on .com for two years at least.

[instand1]

Thank you, Stever!
So I simply did not notice that there has always been this difference between regional and .com.
What could be the reason for this difference?

[jomaxx]

I typically use google.com, sometimes google.ca. I hadn't considered the possibility that international Googles would handle special characters any differently since it's not really a language-specific issue, but it seems they do.

I did a search on both "géricault" and "gericault" at google.com and google.fr (without limiting by search or language). By looking at the results, and also by looking at which words in the SERP's are in boldface, you can see that "é" is recognized as "e" by .fr but not by .com.

[Rumbas]

I just did a couple of spot checks and all came out with the same results using either Danish "Ø" or "OE".

IMO Google still manages to figure it out.

[Chris_D]

I understand that they all differentiate - regional & com - still do, always have.

For example - try this search:

Fussball or Fußball (german for football)

Fussball in .com = 1.48 million results
Fussball in .de = 60,000 results

Fußball in .com = 1.750 million results
Fußball in .de = 78,100 results

Or am I missing something?

[jomaxx]

As stated above, the "é" is treated exactly as a regular "e" by Google.fr, whereas Google.com treats it as a special character. The "Ø" was always treated as a special character in the testing I did today, despite what Rumbas has seen. I have no idea about the "ß".

This looks like it's going to be a complicated and nit-picky subject to get hold of. Despite the fact that I target a lot of accented keyphrases, it's of ever-diminishing interest to me. I basically try to make sure both examples are on the page and let the chips fall where they may.

[jomaxx]

P.S. I guess these other elements might also factor into the specific search results we see when using extended characters:
- default language as defined in the web browser
- default language set in Google preferences
- the content-type and/or content-language specified on the webpage

I'm sure I could figure this all out, except that every time I try to think about it I get so sleepy.............

[troels nybo nielsen]

> IMO Google still manages to figure it out.

Sorry Rumbas, but I have to disagree. I just googled a non-existing word and found 40K+ results. And believe me: That word really DOES NOT EXIST.

[Hagstrom]

Rumbas is right.

Of course you can't use "regional" Google since Google.dk is a book store :) - but if you change Google's language to Danish, oe will be treated as ø.

Thanks for the tip Rumbas

Why don't the Smileys work?

[Chris_D]

Ok - if you try a little testing - then it looks like everyone is correct:

If your Google preferences are set to 'any language' then Google DOES differentiate (as per my post above)
i.e clearly different results:

Search for Fussball or Fußball (german for football) - with Google preferences set to 'search any language':
Fussball in .com = 1.48 million results
Fussball in .de = 60,000 results

Fußball in .com = 1.750 million results
Fußball in .de = 78,100 results

BUT - if you change your Google preferences to a specific language - for this example - search in German only:

Fussball in .com = 1.100 million results
Fussball in .de = 1.130 million results

Fußball in .com = 1.130 million results
Fußball in .de = 1.130 million results

[Hagstrom]

It doesn't always work like that:

If I change the language to Elmer Fudd, I get 2,810,000 hits for "rabbit" but only 29,300 hits for "wabbit".

The Smileys don't work at the moment :)

[stever]

Following up for us accent aficionados.

The new ö = oe rules are not being applied in a blanket fashion.

For example, a search with "accented keyword"/"keyword used in many different languages" produces results with all versions.

However "accented keyword"/"keyword only used in that language" reverts to giving prominence to the "proper" accent spelling.

FWIW.

[edited by: heini at 10:38 am (utc) on Sep. 7, 2003]
[edit reason] opened up the thread [/edit]

[heini]

Very interesting, Stever. I find it a bit hard to verify, given that results between .com and .de are often very different anyways.

[amazed]

no, I just tested with a German place name with ü or ue, I get the same SERP containing both in .de and .com.

I think google keeps experimenting. I get some weird results with unrelated and very distant keywords on pages, data centers seem to work with different algorithms.

[stever]

I wasn't referring to differences between country Googles, but to seeming differences in valuations for accents (e.g. more of a reversion to old-style) between accented searches on google.com dependent on whether additional words were language-specific or not.

Having said that, the original query wasn't in German and I've just tried it with ö and oe and it's not making a difference. Maybe Google isn't picking up certain language accents properly (or maybe I'm seeing things).