Does Google understand misspellings in terms of what keywords I should optimize a page for

[CentreTEK]

Hey there!

This is sort of an oddball question. We do a lot of hospital websites. One client that we have spells "Orthopedics" as "Orthopaedics" which is another spelling. When I did initial keyword research the volume for Orthopedics as I expected is much higher. However when I do a test search for "Orthopaedics" it looks like I'm getting the same results and Google is highlighting in the content "orthopaedics" even though my search query was "orthopedics". What I'm wondering  - is it the same thing to optimize for "orthopaedics" or is it a recommendation I should make to the client to change to "orthopedics"

Thanks!

[Igor.Go]

Google will recognize that as a typo.
But will your client's potential customers want to deal with orthopedician who doesn't know how to spell orthopedics?

[CentreTEK]

haha thanks. It's not a typo actually - it's an accepted alternate spelling many other hospitals use as well.