What about British vs. American spelling?
There are differences in American and British spelling. You can exploit these differences in spelling to target American or European web resources. Searching with the following British and American spellings will change your results. If you use keywords with British spelling you will usually match European web resources. American spelling usually matches web resources from the United States.
When using this technique, pay particular attention to the domain names of the web pages you retrieve. Many European sites use a two letter designator in their domain name to indicate their country of origin. For example: .uk = United Kingdom; .fr = France; .nl = Netherlands, .ge = Germany.
British |
American |
programme |
program |
colour |
color |
theatre |
theater |
aeroplane |
airplane |
defence |
defense |
To see how alternate spellings effect results, try the following example queries on your search engine of choice:
- "information literacy programme" vs. "information literacy program"
- "Defence Department" vs. "Defense Department"
Video Tutorial On Alternate Spellings.
Authored by Dennis O'Connor 2003-2004