As a British person, when you look for “colouring” on Google, you don’t expect the American version of the spelling.
And you especially don’t expect that kind of result to be sitting right at the top of the results!
Here’s the website that appeared right at the top as I carried out this search today:
If you’re in the UK, this is most likely what you’ll get too (unless there’s a change-up in the ranking by the time you do it).
And if you’re anywhere else in the world, you can still check by changing by going to Google’s search settings.
From there, you’ll get the option to set your regional settings, and you can select the United Kingdom from the list of regions available.
The number one result being American is quite surprising because the top result is supposed to be the most accurate.
It should be the one that considers the context of the search most.
And what’s more obvious when it comes to search context than the language being used?
So this is one apparent flaw in Google’s algorithm that the company might want its teams to look at.
You may be thinking that it doesn’t matter if the top result has American spelling.
Colouring is colouring one way or the other, and you may also find the information or templates you’re looking for in the American version.
So maybe you believe I’m nitpicking too much.
Let me tell you why this issue goes well beyond spelling.
When you go to the “characters” page on the website at the top (https://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/characters/), what’s the first image you see?
Star Wars!
You couldn’t get something more American than that.
And even the homepage has a separate “Disney” section in it.
So a British child (or their parent) might be more familiar with British characters and might enjoy colouring them in more.
And this top result doesn’t allow them to do so.
What’s your take on this issue?
Let me know in the comments!
