Town considers changing name to rank better

The town of Eu, France (population 8,000) is pissed that a silly little thing called the European Union managed to co-opt their town’s name in its typical shortening. Not so much because they disagree wit bloated bureaucracy and the insistence that all of these countries have enough in common to cleave to each other and don’t want it associated with them, but because it makes it hard to rank in Google - thus depriving them of potential tourist revenue.

And they’re right. I’ve never heard of these people. What could the tourist draw possibly be? More cheese, sprawling civil service and cowardice than in the next village over?

The funny thing is that they rank #1 for ‘eu’ on Google France – it’s only when they step outside those comfortable, pastoral gates that they have trouble. And while I applaud the initiative to care enough about search to annhialate a 1000 year-old tradition, wouldn’t it be easier to adapt….your website? You know, create separate sites under TLDs, build out your content to pursue the kinds of terms people will search for, build links, etc. Seriously, you might drive some traffic from people searching for ‘eu’ but the real quality conversions will be from people searching for ‘eu bed and breakast’ or ‘eu france cheese’ or ‘eu france surrender’ – much easier terms to win on.

Content wins the battles for you, kids – so unless you’re looking to hide something, don’t change your name to improve rankings, especially when you’ve got a 1,000 year-old brand. Besides, the EU way is to sue over branding and naming rights. Get with the program, frenchie.

(hat tip:serountdtable.com)

Mom says there are no posts that are like me. I am unique.

Tags:   fail · france · Google · Google sucks · political · political seo Share on Twitter

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