Thought provoking discussion on perfect synonym keywords
-
This is just a general theoretical discussion to provoke some thought.
Suppose I have a 2 synonym keywords - which mean identical things.
EG - "Golf Holiday" "Golf Break" - probably you can think of better ones, but you get the idea.
On the following assumptions:
- Google knows these synonyms have identical meaning.
- Google want to provide the searcher with the "best possible result set".
- By definition there can only be 1 "best possible results set"
If the above is true, then Google should produce identical result sets for either of these terms - **So why don't they? **
-
Even when phrases have the same meaning, there can be different reasons to prefer one phrase over the other. An exact match will (and in my opinion should) be given preference.
The phrase could be a name of a movie or book or be contained in a speech. Ultimately a decision needs to be made on how the results will be offered and this is what SEs (not just Google) have determined is most helpful to users.
I would guess Google would offer a relevancy rating to each phrase. I can see how "Golf Holiday" and "Golf Break" could be used to refer to the same thing, but I would suggest the relevancy of those two particular phrases is a bit low. A person could work 4 hours in the morning, then take a "Golf Break" and hit 9 holes, then return to work. I wouldn't refer to that as a "Golf Holiday".
An example of terms with higher relevancy would be "mobile phone" and "cell phone". I would suggest that 95%+ of the time these words mean exactly the same thing. But you still have to give people credit for exact name matches with domain names, titles, etc above those who use the second form of the phrase. There often is a reason a user chose the phrase they did and could prefer an exact match.
-
Possibly because the CTR would be lower if the title tags and meta descriptions included synonyms rather than the original search phrase.
Even though the searcher will most likely know the synonyms mean the same thing they may have a tendency to click on the results that use the language that they use.
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
-
Cannibalization vs long tail keyword dilemma
Hi all. I have a dilemma that I'm trying to work out a solution to and could use some input. We offer a Foreign Qualification (FQ) service for businesses, and thus "foreign qualification" is a strong keyword for which we currently hold great ranking position for our service page. FQ is different in each state, so we have a series of blog posts focusing on the requirements for each state. "Alabama foreign qualification" is one of many long tail keywords (50 states x various phrasings) we're targeting here. The problem is that it's impossible to write 50 blog posts that are not very similar content, since the process is similar, just not identical, in each state. I'm worried about duplicate content penalties here. I'm thinking that I'd want to create a landing page that serves as a hub for each of these blog posts, perhaps with a reference table for the 50 states too, and set the blog post canonicals to this landing page (thereby pushing all state-focused long tail KWs there). However, I don't want to take away ranking strength of the aforementioned service page for the primary keyword. If I do this, and also link the new landing page to the service page using "foreign qualification" as the anchor text, am I more likely to add or take away from the strength of the service page? Thanks for any and all insight!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mkupfer1 -
Keywords and keyword traffic
Hi I am struggling to know what keywords i should be targeting and how the website should be best optimised for said keywords. The website offers bespoke service in the lake district UK a popular tourist destination, The business operates within say a 30 km riadus of the area. So target vistors to the website would specifically be looking for services in the lake district. The trouble is for many targeted keywords for the area are quite low or no data shown. For example: tipi camping lake district, tipi hire lake district, Glamping lake district However nationally keywords for the service have a lot higher traffic i.e. tipi hire or tipi camping, glamping what keywords should be my target? and should I targeting my website for? I don't want to target customers looking for these services outside of the lake district and also by targeting keywords without the term lake district means my competition is greater as i'm competing with the whole of the Uk for serivces It can't provide. please advise thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bengo-990 -
How To Optimize A Page For Multiple Keywords
Hi Guys, In this video by Brian Dean he talks about how to go about optimising for multiple keywords. He basically said the main factors for optimising a page for multiple keywords are the following: Identify other keywords with same search intent as your primary keyword. Add them to title tag strategically, don't stuff them in there. Add as many of those keywords as h2 tags into the content, again when it makes sense. Are there any other more advanced ways you can use to optimize a page for multiple keywords with same search intent that could be good? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated! Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts110 -
Keywords under product listing pages
Hi guys, One of my main concerns when we start redesigning the site Trespass.co.uk, is the current pages like this one http://www.trespass.co.uk/snow-sports/clothing/ski-jackets/womens-ski-jackets are bordering over optimisation. Is this the case as each product listed in the url above has "womens ski jacket" under each product. If we have 50 products on each product listing page with the product name + type of product, ie. flora womens ski jacket, xyz mens waterproof jacket. Are we over optimising the page for the main keywords by having them under each product? Would that page be over optimised for womens ski jackets? Thanks guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trespass0 -
What to do with my keyword rich domainnames?
Hi, We have a holiday home rental business in Italy (Umbria). At this moment the language of the site is dutch and we targeting at the dutch and belgium market. We now in the fase of developing/adding 2 more languages, german and english. The url structure is going to is/be. dutch version (live)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | remcozwaan
domainname.com/nl
domeinname.com/nl/vakantiehuizen English (en) version (dev)
domainname.com/en
domeinname.com/en/villas
domeinname.com/en/villas/name-of-the-villa
domeinname.com/en/apartments
ect German (de) version (dev)
domainname.com/de
domeinname.com/de/ferienwohnung
domeinname.com/de/erienwohnung/name-of-the-ferienwohnung
domeinname.com/de/ferienhauser
domeinname.com/de/ferienhauser/name-of-the-ferienhauser
ect I have some registred some keyword rich domainnames like vakantiehuizeninumbrie.com (nl)
ferienwohnungumbrien.de (de)
ect question: Is it a good approach (seo wise) to point the keyword rich domainname to the specified landingpage. By example: point ferienwohnungumbrien.de to the page domeinname.com/de/ferienwohnung ? mille grazie! remco0 -
On page report card for the keyword "computers"
I was looking at which websites ranks in the TOP 3 for the keyword "computers"... I noticed that first is wikipedia and then there are Dell and Apple... I then did an on page report card and I noticed that wikipedia has a grade A (which is great ) However, Apple has an F ( which sucks !! ) but there still rank out there. My question is why is Apple ranking for the keyword computers with no tiitle, no URL, no H1, no body, no B/Strong... when wikipedia has all of that and the term " computers " occurs 290 times on its page... Is is due to the fact that apple has millions of external links and is that enough to rank even with an " irrelevant " page ? By the way I have noticed that on other keywords such as " bicycle ". Wikipedia is ranking 1 st and then sites like www.trekbikes.com are out there but they shouldn't based on their homepage "optimization ". I know there are other factors but I am just trying to figure why such sites ( like apple or trek bikes ) rank out there. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Method for Ranking fast low competition keywords.
I have a web site for tours & according to Moz there are many duplicates titles and description .So now in the process of making all the errors correct. already around 1500 pages indexed in Google.keywords competition from 135000 to 2400 respectively.still not any of keywords ranking for top 100 result in local search .already created Google place also. So i wanna show to my client few lower kws in 20 days in top 100 result at least .looking for expert advice , <colgroup><col width="163"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
Impact of Non-English target keywords in URL
Hi all, our site language is Farsi (Persian) so at first we tried to create URLs that contain our target keywords in Farsi too. The problem with this approach is that our URLs are not shown in a friendly style anymore: a bunch of unicode numeric codes instead of Farsi characters. Do you know which is the best approach? 1. Creating ugly looking URLs containing Farsi keywords 2. Forget about putting our keywords in URLs and have nice English URLs Thanks in advance for your time and help 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | diki0