Eu: looks lovely but very hard to find

The people of Eu (pronounced like the second syllable of mother), a picturesque spot in Normandy, have put up with centuries of teasing about the unusual name of their town. In French it’s indistinguishable from the mumble that marks a pause in speech like “um” or “err” in English.

The mayor of Eu gets it particularly tough: those of you with schoolboy French may appreciate what Maire d’Eu sounds like. (The rest of you might go and look up the word merde).

Anyhow, the problem has taken on a new dimension in the 21st century. The mayor says the town is losing out on tourism because Eu doesn’t show up when people search for hotels, restaurants and mini-breaks in northern France.

On a French search engine, you get the past participle of the verb to have, while on English sites an interminable list of European Union websites appears.

The mayor has suggested changing the name of the town but that seems like admitting defeat, so can we help save the town of Eu by boosting its appearance on Google?

Our resident internet search expert Drew Broomhall has a couple of wise suggestions:

1. Ask bloggers and travel websites across the globe to link to the Eu website using the text ‘Eu’, like so: <a href-”http://www.ville-eu.fr/”>Eu</a>
 
This tells search engines that the page is about Eu, and will gradually move the site up the rankings.
 
2. Create translated versions of their website, which can target English (and other language) search terms that would visitors to Eu, ie http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=eu+holiday

Can you think of any other approaches?

If we were a less-respectable website we might suggest a Google bomb assault so that a search for “Cool places in France” led you direct to the Bienvenue à Eu website. But we’re told it doesn’t work anymore and, in any case, it’s not to be encouraged.