In my post about Google Website
Optimizer I threw out a question to illustrate the dilemma:
Should I use web site or website? Which left me wondering which
should I use? While I’m wondering, how about e-mail or email?
I could nip up to Liverpool Central Library or the Waterstone’s
in Liverpool ONE and look in a style guide but by the time
it’s been written, edited, printed and shipped to the bookshop its
possibly out of date.
As you’ve probably guessed from previous posts I’m not afraid of
turning to statistics for the answer to questions. Now I could do a
survey to find out what people think but that seems a bit extreme.
Instead I’m going to turn to the web for the answer. A quick check
on Google Trends (opens new window)
for the last 12 months in the UK shows there were 18.2
searches using “website” for every search using “web site”. There
were 18.5 times as many searches for “email” compared to
“e-mail”.