Although it turns out this story is a few days old, I only just picked it up on Techdirt. I don’t think this is a technical writing story, but the majority of freelance writing jobs I’ve seen lately are all about creating content for search engine optimization (SEO). If this isn’t a story about SEO, I don’t know what is.

I certainly hope that Eu, France, does not change its name, it would be a tragedy. The world cannot bow down to the search engine and throw its history away for the sake of search hits. If anything, the town is infinitely more popular now for its struggle.

At the same time, the town seems to overlook the fact that people rarely use only one keyword for a search. If someone is looking for the town on the French coast, that person is not going to be satisfied with page after page of information about the European Union (EU), he’ll clarify his search terms. Although in my case, searching for “eu” in Google Maps was immediately successful.

Are you writing SEO content? Do you have to contend with similar ambiguity with web searches?