How much does punctuation affect on-page SEO?
-
I have a page on a site that is targeted for "men's custom suits." Using the on-page analysis tool from SEOmoz it gives me an F for "mens custom suits" but an A with the apostrophe.
Even though the apostrophe is proper English grammar, does it affect rankings either way?
-
Okay, got it. That's what I figured, but SEO tools are limited to not take this variation into account, so I wasn't sure.
-
I heard Matt Cutts talk about this in GWT youtube. He says that punctuation are looked at as spaces, with exception to the _.(underscore). So in this case, I think Google will try to match it close. For instance, I rank for the word Ship Car Overseas. I didn't optimize for the word Ship Auto Overseas, but I still rank for it. I also didn't optimize for the word Ship Vehicle Overseas, but I still rank for that too. My point is that mens and men's is closely related and that you will probably be fine either way.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Product Page Links
I have a product category page at https://www.hurtlegear.com.au/s1000rr/ which currently has 38 products on it. Problem is, all the product titles start with the name of the text: "bmw s1000rr" (because that's what they are) - so that means there are 38 anchored internal links on that page, all starting with the same keyword. You can see how that might look to the Google crawler. Recently that page dropped from around 15 to outside the top 100, and Moz tells me that the page is keyword stuffed with "bmw s1000rr" (no suprise) so I'm guessing that may be the reason the page has disappeared out of the SERPs. I don't really want to change all the product titles (then they wouldn't make sense) so I'm just wondering if there is any way around this? Is there some way of telling Google that this is a product category page and therefore to ignore the anchor text in all of those product links? Can/should the links have some kind of markup on them? Or is the page beyond help? Basically I'm looking at a way of keeping the product titles as they are, but avoiding a page penalty from Google somehow. I'm a bit of a newbie, any suggestions would be most appreciated. Cheers, Graeme
On-Page Optimization | | graeme720 -
Keyword Appearing on Home Page - Moz Page Grader
Hi Today I entered www.partydomain.co.uk through the Moz Page Grader and found that the Home Page is Ranked B. I noticed that an Area we could improve on is the amount of times we are using our main keyword "Fancy Dress" on the home page. Please can you take a look at www.partydomain.co.uk and scroll to the bottom of the page were the tabs are containing losts of content. I am thinking about removing all of thoose Tabs. Our Competitors dont have any content as such on the home page and are ranking higher than Party Domain for "fancy dress" What do you think ? remove all the tabs to be like the others that rank better? Or cut the text right down ? Thanks Adam
On-Page Optimization | | AMG1000 -
Noindex child pages (whose content is included on parent pages)?
I'm sorry if there have been questions close to this before... I've using WordPress less like a blogging platform and more like a CMS for years now... For content management purposes we organize a lot of content around Parent/Child page (and custom-post-type) relationships; the Child pages are included as tabbed content on the Parent page. Should I be noindexing these child pages, since their content is already on the site, in full, on their Parent pages (ie. duplicate content)? Or does it not matter, since the crawlers may not go to all of the tabbed content? None of the pages have shown up in Moz's "High Priority Issues" as duplicate content but it still seems like I'm making the Parent pages suffer needlessly... Anything obvious I'm not taking into consideration? By the by, this is my first post here @ Moz, which I'm loving; this site and the forums are such a great resource! Anyways, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | rsigg0 -
"City page" links in footer of home page: Spammy?
Is listing a bunch of links to city pages in the footer of a home page considered "spammy" to Google? (ie- Chicago Alarms, Illinois Alarms, Naperville Alarms, etc.) What are the negative affects this might have on ranking, if any?
On-Page Optimization | | MChi0 -
N/A For On-page SEO Report
I have 8 errors and 44 warnings last week. Over the week, I corrected broken links, duplicate titles, meta tags, and duplicate page content. Now after it was run again, I'm getting an N/A. Does N/A mean there are NO errors at all on the site? I didn't fix all of the errors and warnings but most I did. My website is also up and running. Please let me know if I'm missing something or if I did that good of a job for my client's on-page SEO stuff, which I doubt despite moving the needle forward. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | JQC0 -
Best Layout for Product Page SEO
Hi I am looking to revamp my website and would like to know your views on the best product layout for SEO - in particular if it better to have tabulated content like play.com http://goo.gl/4xdqp or non tabulated content like Amazon. http://goo.gl/cojKj Are there any pros or cons to each approach? I believe tabulated looks better and is easier to navigate but do the engines see this as hidden text? I have been told this is an issue with expandable divs. Many thanks David
On-Page Optimization | | DavidLenehan0 -
SEO value of "in the news" links on home page?
Notice more sites have an "in the News" section on the home page, or something similar like press releases... Apart from providing users fresh content, is there an SEO value to this? What is the explanation for this? Have a feeling the answer is obvious but just not too sure Thanks a lot.
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Optimization of home page
Hi there I have an issue which, despite searching hard, I simply cannot find the right solution for. We have an index page that used to rank pretty well for a main industry keyword. However following a revamp of the site last year the kw slipped and no longer brings in decent traffic levels. The problem seems to be that the old static site had a sprinkling of variable anchor text links that brought value to the home page. Instead of the main anchor being "home" we would revert to "main keyword" and variations across the site sometimes in t he content but mainly on the nav bars. However the new CMS design structure restricts us considerably with anchor distribution and so instead we opted for the site logo on the masthead to have an ALT tag for "main keyword" but so as not to game google too much we added .."home" to the tag. Probably pointless but we figured it could do no harm. This ALT text is site wide Problem now is that we have lost the spread of internal nav bar anchors and variety etc. We have slipped in the serps for "main keyword" and I cant help thinking we are not maximising the anchors as we should. So what Im coming to is this.... How can we tell if Google is picking up the ALT tage anchor as the main anchor to rank the site at the expense of all internal text anchors. Despite retaining lots of embedded anchors - according to the Moz metrics these are not being picked up because OSE suggests the ALT tag anchor is taking precedence. The serps probably support this view as well. Should we: a) Vary the masthead ALT if there is no way of avoiding this being the most important link / anchor on the page b) Remove the ALT anchor and instead opt for content links high on the page (we do have nav bar links saying "Home" site wide as well which may overrid the embedded links?) c) Leave the ALT alone and still push for content anchors as described in b) What is the best way to handle this..? Best wishes and thanks Morch
On-Page Optimization | | Morch0