How To Optimize For Same Word, Different Spelling
-
Hi all.
Just wondering what peoples stance is on using multiple variations of keywords on a webpage - those keywords that have the same meaning and search intent, but are just spelt differently.
i.e. 'woodscrews' and 'wood screws' (the latter has a significantly higher search volume)
You could approach the webpage in 4 different ways;
1. Use ONLY 'wood screws' on-page, and in the page <title><br />2. Use ONLY 'woodscrews' on-page, and in the page <title><br />3. Use BOTH 'wood screws' and 'woodscrews' on-page, and BOTH in the page <title><br />4. Use BOTH 'wood screws' and 'woodscrews' on-page, but ONLY one variation in the page <title></p> <p>We've run some tests in the past but there were never any clear takeaways, a mixed bag of results really.</p> <p>Also, If they are considered the same keyword by Google why are the ranking positions always different for each variation?</p> <p>I'm not sure there' a specific answer to this, just interested to hear peoples thoughts really.</p> <p>Many thanks in advance!</p> <p>Lee.</p></title>
-
Many thanks, Donna.
I'm seeing things completely different to you. Screwfix does use both variations on-page (METAs and content). They also rank #1 for both variations.
Strange! I am searching from the UK, but the ranking Screwfix pages should be the same regardless.
Lee
-
You will rank for both, once your site has earned enough authority on the topic. Google appears to be interpreting the terms as synonymous. You're likely seeing variations cause they (Google) are perpetually testing.
If I search for "woodscrews" today, only one page 1 search result (Screwfix) uses "woodscrews" in their title tag and on-page content. The nine others do NOT and yet still manage to rank on page 1 for the term.
You may see different results, but my point is, it may be less of a conundrum than you think. If you want to try to rank for both variations, you're going to have to out-optimize all competitors, including the 1 (Screwfix) that does manage to rank for a different spelling of the term. Screwfix has not used the spaced version of the term (wood screws) even once on the page. When you take into consideration EGOL's points, that may be a problem for you.
Also of note, Screwfix does NOT rank on page 1 for "wood screws" (with the space). So they really have traded off one for the other.
-
Fair commments, Egol.. I can certainly see the logic.
The problem is that people use both variants.. so we want to rank for both!
It’s a conundrum
-
For me, there are two issues.
A) If one of the variants is incorrect or ignorant then my visitors will see it. This is a concern of people who run formal or academic sites. Some people might not link to me If I don't know how to spell some of the most commonly used words on my site.
B) Incorrect or ignorant usage could be a slight deduction from Google.
-
Many thanks, Egol.
Do you think that using both variants on page would cause any issues?
All the best.
Lee
-
I usually go to Google.com and do a few searches. That usually reveals what variants of the query are being used by people in their content and how Google will respond to the different variants.
In the case of "woodscrews"... Google says....
**About 3,990,000 results (0.54 seconds) **
Did you mean: wood screws
Now, I know what most vendors are using and see that Google will offer "wood screws" as the preferred variant. So, I would write all of my content using that variant. I usually agree with Google's preferred variant from my personal experience. However, if their preferred variant was an incorrect usage or an ignorant usage, then I will think about how that would fit into my website. But, since my websites are written in a formal context, I almost always go with proper, formal language.
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
-
How important is it to add hyphens between words in URL Permalink Structure?
We have an issue with our URL Permalink Structures for dynamically generated pages on our website. As we generated hundreds of pages, it does not automatically Space the Words in the Permalink Structure . For example, if we have a product name Under Armour Fire Basketball Shoe , it will show up in the url as: "mywebsite.com/underarmourfire-basketballshoe" vs "mywebsite.com/under-armour-fire-basketball-shoe" How important is it that the URL includes these spaces between each word in the permalink?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NJ-Keith0 -
List of stop words
Hello, I have that search engine discounts stop words in order to gain computing power. Is there a list of those words that are discounted ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Same server for different client sites?
Hi everyone - I have a question about whether it's OK for us to host several of our client's websites on the same dedicated web server, without this causing problems in SEO. I know the issues with duplicate content etc., but for background - we provide website services to a particular sector (antiques/auctions). All our clients are distinct, and have written their own copy etc., but because they're all in the same sector, their websites will - largely - talk about the same types of things - so the content is not duplicated, but it's similar in topic, I guess. Does anyone feel it would cause a problem if we were to put several (say about 😎 of our client's websites on the same dedicated web server, or would we be better spreading the sites over different shared servers? Come to think about it, if we are spreading those same 8 sites across 4 virtual servers - but all hosted by the same company - presumably Google would know that too? Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this! Nikki
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Go-Auction0 -
Zero Position and bolded words
Hi, I was wondering if in the featured snippets as well as in the regular snippets the words that are bolded are what google considers being part of the knowledge graph for that request. For example if you type "italy tour" see the featured snippet and the bolded words, why are those bolded ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Effect on SEO for e-commerce on a different domain?
We are engaging a vendor to host our LMS and the process for purchasing access to the LMS (product pages/checkout). The vendor can only accomplish this by domain masking (redirecting portal.ourdomain.com to a subdomain on their domain). Our concern is the SEO implication. Obviously we would prefer the content hosted in a subfolder on our domain for the best SEO outcome, but this isn't an option. The vendor's domain authority is considerably lower than our own, but they recommend moving our product pages, which are currently hosted on our primary domain, to their subdomain so the checkout process is fully integrated using their product. Several of our product pages rank in the top 10 on Google and we don't want to lose that. Does anyone have any experience with domain masking and maintaining page rank? My inclination is that moving these high-ranking pages will 1) Hurt our primary domain, and 2) Negatively effect the rank of our product pages. Thanks in advance, Beth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bethkmac0 -
Can you spot the differences?
Well, I have been scratching my head on this for days, I will try throwing the ball to you with hopes someone more experienced than me can help. The scenario is: e-commerce -> brand page -> SERP -> comparison between how two pages rank; one from my website, one from a competitor website. The brand is Michelin, the keyword is "pneumatici michelin" (equivalent in italian of “michelin tires”). I am not looking at SERP first page, where competition is surely much more fierce. I am looking at position 11: http://www.cambio-gomme.it/marchi/michelin/ And my page (not in the first 50): http://www.gomme-auto.it/pneumatici/michelin My page: MOZ Page Grade (for keyword “pneumatici michelin”): A External backlinks to the page: 1 Domain Authority: 29 Page Authority: 24 On-page SEO optimization: keyword density: 0.87% internal links: 145 external links: 3 page size: 108kb html size: 24kb words on page: 2077 link-words: 408 non-linked words: 1669 time to first byte: 0.419s Competitor page: MOZ Page Grade (for keyword “pneumatici michelin”): A External backlinks to the page: 0 Domain Authority: 26 Page Authority: 13 On-page SEO optimization: keyword density: 0.75% internal links: 70 external links: 1 page size: 31kb html size: 9kb words on page: 1521 link-words: 168 non-linked words: 1353 time to first byte: 0.373s Domain age is very similar, both websites launched close to each other in 2012. Ideas? Suggestion on other metrics to compare?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | max.favilli0 -
Breadcrumb wording and keywords
This is real estate website related. For every neighborhood I have a "condos" and "houses" page. In the breadcrumb structure I may have: "home > island condos > city condos > region condos > neighborhood condos". Questions: Some breadrumb structures have 5-6 different breadcrumb link and repeating the word "condos" in each link seems redundant. Would it be better just to list "island", "city", "region", "neighborhood" and never use the word "condos" or "houses" in the breadcrumbs? For users this would be better. If I implement what I suggest in 1) - deleting "condos" or "houses" wording from breadcrumb links, then on a condos page the word "region" (as an example) will lead to the "region condos" page whereas the exact same word "region" on a house page will lead to the "region houses" page. This means I will have a situation where the anchor text in breadcrumbs become 100% identical for my "condos" and "houses" pages, however, the they lead to different pages. Is this OK? I have in past been told that when I use internal anchor text, that the link should always leads to the same page. Having same anchor leading to different pages would not be good….is that so? thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
One platform, multiple niche sites: Worth $60/mo so each site has different class C?
Howdy all, The short of it is that I currently run a very niche business directory/review website and am in the process of expanding the system to support running multiple sites out of the same database/codebase. In a normal setup I'd just run all the sites off of the same server with all of them sharing a single IP address, but thanks to the wonders of the cloud, it would be fairly simple for me to run each site on it's own server at a cost of about $60/mo/site giving each site a unique IP on a unique c-block (in many cases a unique a-block even.) The ultimate goal here is to leverage the authority I've built up for the one site I currently run to help grow the next site I launch, and repeat the process. The question is: Is the SEO-value that the sites can pass to each other worth the extra cost and management overhead? I've gotten conflicting answers on this topic from multiple people I consider pretty smart so I'd love to know what other people say.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qurve0