Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I exclude prepositions in tracked keywords of moz analytics?
-
I'm new to Moz. Just set up my trial campaign, and it had suggested many keywords. Many of the phrases that were suggested do not contain prepositions.
For example, instead of something like "sporting good stores in Chicago" it suggested "sporting good stores Chicago"
Today, I looked at the on-page optimization suggestions, which are (of course) suggesting that I remove prepositions from my page to rank well.
Well, as you know, that is unnatural to the reader. But I suspect people are searching in higher volume, leaving the prepositions out. I know that if I were to search for a sporting goods store in Chicago, I would probably leave out "in."
What should I do? Should I remove all the suggested keywords, and make them readable (which people are less like using in their search?) Do I go back to all my pages and try to optimize it for a keyword that is natural, but does not include a preposition (such as Chicago sporting goods stores) or should I be doing something else?
-
I agree with Joey. Most prepositions are stop words, so they may carry less weight in the search algorithm. That's not to say they aren't important. I just searched "sporting goods stores in Atlanta" and "sporting goods stores Atlanta" and got very slightly different results for each.
The on page optimization suggestions are just suggestions to point you in the right direction based on keywords you entered into the tool. You should never sacrifice usability for your readers in order to satisfy an SEO tool. The tool is just a starting point.
-
I would say let your keyword research do the talking. The tried and true method is to use your "seed" keywords, gather all the suggestions you can, measure which keywords hold the most value for you, and look for the opportunities. If one of your best opportunities has prepositions in it, there is your answer. I'm willing to bet you'll find valuable keywords that use them.
My observation is they don't carry much weight, but with voice searching on mobile, searches can be much more "conversational" when spoken into Siri or Google voice search. We tend to keep things short when we have to type it in, right? There is also Google's Hummingbird update, semantic search and natural language processing. WordStream did a great blog on this right after Google's Hummingbird update. I highly recommend you read the whole article. Here's an especially relevant quote:
"You only have to look at how accurate Google Now has become since its introduction to see that natural language processing is going to remain a major part of Google’s plans for search."
Overall, I'd use the prepositions. Natural language is important, sounds better, and the data is probably there suggesting you should keep it.
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
-
If we put the disavow links in google, does MOZ crawl the same links?
I have put bad or spam links in disavow file, but still showing in MOZ backlinks. So, I want to know that Why is MOZ not removing the spam links from their system?
Moz Bar | | insidewebanalytics0 -
Will Removing or Disavowing Toxic Links Improve MOZ Domain Authority?
The vast majority of the 140 domains that link to our website are very low quality directories or and other toxic links. Only about 20-30 domains are not toxic (according to Link Research Tools confirmed by out manual inspection of these links). Would removing some of these links improve of MOZ Domain Rank? What if we cannot remove them, can NOZ detect a disavow file? In general would improving the ratio between good quality and poor quality links improve domain authority? Thanks,
Moz Bar | | Kingalan1
Alan2 -
Why keywords have zero data for UAE?
I have searched for food delivery keyword for the United Arab Emirates, EN, and AR. Monthly volume has no data whereas difficulty, organic and priority has figures. When I change the country to US; monthly volume has more data. Can you explain; how can I use your service?
Moz Bar | | Twenzy1 -
Moz Keyword Tool Monthly Volume
Ive recently put together a Keyword List of about 100 keywords on the Moz Keyword Explorer tool. One keyword, aerial filming, stood out as very low search volume of 51 - 100. I took the same 100 keywords and passed them through the Google Keyword Planner by Google AdWords. Aerial Filming has an average search volume of 1k - 10k according to the Keyword Planner. Even though Keyword Planner gives me a range of 1k - 10k, the lowest number is still 10 times higher than what the Moz Keyword Explorer was indicating. This drastic difference of volume was consistent across all 100 keywords. All of the Monthly Volume numbers were divided by 10. Why does Moz Keyword Tool display a search volume that is 10x less than what Google Keyword Planner is suggesting?
Moz Bar | | fictionarts0 -
What is a Good Keyword Priority Score?
Howdy gang, This is my last discussion post in the series on keyword metrics in KW Explorer & Moz Pro (previously on Keyword Difficulty, Opportunity, & Volume). In this one, let's chat about the "Priority Score," a feature you'll find in Keyword Explorer on any lists you build. Priority was conceived to help aggregate all the other metrics - Difficulty, Opportunity, Volume, and (if you choose to use it) Importance. We wanted to create an easy way to sort keywords so the cream would rise to the top -- cream in this case being keywords with low difficulty, high opportunity, strong volume, and high importance (again, if you choose to use it). Thus, when it comes to Priority Score, there's no particular number you should necessarily seek out, but higher is better. When you get into the ranges of 80+ (which is quite rare, Single Malt Scotch is one of the few examples I could find, and only because it's volume is so high and there's only a couple SERP features), you're generally talking about keywords with high demand (lots of monthly searches), the difficulty isn't too crazy (a website in the 55-80 DA range might have a shot), and the CTR Opportunity is decently strong (usually not too many SERP features that take clicks and attention away from the organic web results). Below that score range, you're usually finding keywords where one or more of those isn't true -- there's either lower volume, heavier competition, or lots of SERP features with the accompanying lower estimated CTR. When you're building KW lists, my view is that there's no "good" or "bad" Priority scores, only relative scores. Priority should be used to help you determine which terms and phrases to target first -- it's like a cheat code to unlock the low hanging fruit. If you build large lists of 50-100 or more keywords, Priority is a powerful and easy way to sort. It becomes even more useful if you use the Importance score to help add an estimation of value to you/your business/your client in to the mix. In that case, Importance can cut Priority by up to 2/3rds (if you set it at 1) or raise it by a little more than 3X (if you set it at 10). This is hyper-useful to nudge keywords with middling scores up if they're super-important to your marketing efforts. Look forward to your feedback, and thanks for checking these out!
Moz Bar | | randfish8 -
What is a Good Keyword Volume Score?
Hi All! Continuing my series of discussions about the various keyword scores we use here at Moz (previously: Keyword Difficulty & Keyword Opportunity)... Let's move on to Volume. Volume in Moz's tools is expressed in a range, e.g. Bartending Certification has volume of 201-500. These ranges correspond to data we have suggesting that in an average month, that keyword is searched for a minimum of X to a maximum of Y (where X-Y is the volume range). We use clickstream data as well as data from Google AdWords and then some PPC AdWords campaigns we run and have access to when we build the models for our volume data. As such, we've got very high confidence in these numbers -- 95%+ of the time, a given keyword's monthly search volume on Google will fall inside that range. If you want to see all the nitty gritty details, check out Russ Jones post on Moz's Keyword Volume and how we calculate it. As far as a "good" volume score -- higher is usually better, as it means more demand, but lots of keywords with low volume scores can also add up to strong traffic when combined, and they may be more relevant. Capturing exactly the audience you want that also wants you is what SEO is all about. p.s. When Keyword Explorer or Moz Pro gives you a "no data" or "unknown" volume number, it may just mean we haven't collected information from our clickstream providers or AdWords crawls, not that the keyword has no volume (though it sometimes means that, too, we just don't know yet). One way to verify - see if Google Suggest autofills it in when you type in the search box. If it does, that's usually a sign there's at least some volume (even if it's only a few searches a month).
Moz Bar | | randfish11 -
Has using Moz got me banned from Google search?
Dear fellow Mozzers, For the last couple of weeks when ever I do a google search I have to enter a captcha code. Now I hardly use google anymore which is annoying ! Then I went onto support.google.com and saw this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/86640?hl=en&ref_topic=3378866 "Automated traffic includes: Sending searches from a robot, computer program, automated service, or search scraper Using software that sends searches to Google to see how a website or webpage ranks on Google" Is Moz alone doing this? Thanks in advance for your response. Ash
Moz Bar | | -Ash-0 -
How do I export my keywords from Moz?
Simple question: once you've built up a big set of keywords within Moz, how do you export it back out to use in other places?
Moz Bar | | tcolling0