7 September 2012 Last updated at 00:32 ET

Google autocomplete: The internet where you are

Google search's "autocomplete" function fills in the search box after the user types just a single character.

The search results - even those after entering just "a" or "b" - are influenced in large part by what other users in your geographic area are looking for, according to Mark Paskin, a software engineer on Google's search team.

And what users want in the US may not be what users want elsewhere - in Britain, Hong Kong or in any of the 178 other international domains served by Google.

In search of the A-to-Z of the internet, we checked what Google autocomplete recommends in Britain, the US, India, Hong Kong and Nigeria.

The results of our experiment show how differently people use the web across the world, and sheds some light on their interests.

	Britain	US	India	Hong Kong	Nigeria
A	Retailer		Mobile, television and internet provider		Arsenal
B			BSNL - Telephone company	Chinese web services company
C	Electronics retailer	Craigslist, Listings site	Cricinfo, Cricket news and statistics from US network ESPN		Chelsea
D	Debenham's, retailer	Dictionary	DJMaza, Bollywood and Indian music site	Dictionary	Daily Trust, national newspaper based in Abuja, the Nigerian capital
E					Etisalat Nigeria - Mobile phone company
F
G
H
I			IRCTC, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp		Illuminati- First link is to the Wikipedia page of the same name
J	Retailer		Just Dial - Local search engine	Jobsdb - Job search site	JAMB - Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Nigerian university admissions system
K	Kizi - Online games	Kayak - Travel site	Keepvid - Streaming video downloader	KMB - Kowloon Motor Bus Co, bus line
L	Lottery				Linda Ikeji - Nigerian news and gossip blogger
M	Maps	Mapquest	mobile9 - Mobile phone app store	MTR - Hong Kong's rail rapid transit line	MTN Nigeria - Mobile phone company
N	Next - Retailer			NBA - US National Basketball Association	NNPC - Nigerian National Petroleum Corp
O	Olympics	Olympics	Social networking site owned by Google	Openrice - Hong Kong restaurants guide	Mobile web browser
P			PNR status - Indian Railway portal	PPS - Online bill payment service	Punch - The Punch, a Nigerian newspaper
Q	Quidco - Cash and discount voucher site	Quotes	Quotes	qq - Portal for Tencent QQ, a chat service with more than 700m users accounts	Quickteller - Online bill payment service
R	Rightmove - Real estate listings	Film rentals	Rediffmail - News and search portal	RTHK - Radio Television Hong Kong	Ronaldinho
S	Satellite television network		Songs.PK - MP3 downloads	Sina - Online media company
T	Supermarket chain	Large retailer	Times of India - Newspaper	Taobao - E-commerce site	Twitter
U	UK Top 40		UPSC - Indian civil service portal	UA Cinema - Cinema chain	Unilag - University of Lagos
V	Virgin - Mobile phone, media and travel brand			VeryCD - For-profit file sharing site	Vanguard - Vanguard News, Nigerian newspaper
W	Weather		Way2sms - SMS text messaging site	www.baidu.com	www.yahoomail.com
X			Xe - Currency exchange rates	Xe	Xe
Y					Yahoo Mail
Z	Zara - Clothing retailer	Zillow - Real estate listings	Zedge - Mobile phone ringtones and apps	Zara	Zenith Bank