Dealing with spelling variations
-
Hi, my site is a directory for restaurants seen on TV. The two most popular shows, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Man v. Food often are searched for by a number of different variations. Diners DriveIns Dives, Diners, Drive Ins Dives, Man v Food, man versus food, etc.
Should my site consistently use a single variation (the official one) or intentionally use multiple variations to cover various keywords? I'm pretty sure the answer is a single variation but figured it was worth asking.
-
We deal with a similar issue. However, what makes it interestingly complex is that our branch and audience is B2B.
Besides being very important to know which variations has more traffic volume, it seems that a single/plural variation can have in the background different queries' needs or origins.
For example between "payment services" and "payment service", there seems to be no difference and of course as the previous mozers comment, Google is intelligent enough to present results regardless of the spelling.
However, "payment service" could be (and tends to be) a B2C query. Usually referring to a specific service, i.e. "jc penney payment service". That is of course not relevant for us.
In conclusion, I would recommend to also have a look at the content's type and context that the different variations trigger.
-
I would err on the side of using the right name. Google and Bing will figure it out. And the grammar police won't arrest you. Trust me, they are annoying. Go for right, please.
-
Although Google is smart enough to figure out synonyms in many cases, it's still good practice to mix up your keywords on your page with different variations. This is a better experience for the user as well, since the content will be less repetitive.
Look at the search volumes for the various keyword variations, and see which variations are being used the most. If there are a couple variations that get used a lot, it may make sense to create pages on your site which each focus on a single variation.
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 to deal with this duplicate content
Hello our websites offers prayer times in the US and UK. The problem is that we have nearby towns where the prayer times are the same and the pages (exp : https://prayer-times.us/prayer-times-lake-michigan-12258-en and https://prayer-times.us/prayer-times-lake-12147-en) are in duplicate . Same issue for this page https://prayer-time.uk/prayer-times-wallsend-411-en How can we solve this problem
On-Page Optimization | | Zakirou0 -
URL Keyword Variations?
I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in). My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"? And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Dealing with Not Found errors
Hi, I have a problem with Google Webmaster, it reported that I have many errors 404 Not Found.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
I have detected and found the links are coming from my site, I have fixed them and submit a new sitemap to google again. Then, I wait a few days, google still report errors 404 Not found same as before. I don't know why? Please help!0 -
When it comes to duplicate page content how do I deal with correcting it. Its a dynamic e commerce site.
I am under the impression that with ecommerce sites this happens often and that there's a plug in or just simply not worry about it since queries will often find similar conent.
On-Page Optimization | | Wayne_c0 -
Dealing with a category page that is optimised & ranks for same keyword as homepage
Hi, I'm working with a very niche website where only one product is sold. This means there is a small keyword set (just variations of same keyword) that we are optimising for. Currently the homepage www.example.com ranks in position 2 for target term - "sample". But there is also a required deeper page www.example.com/sample which has lots and lots of internal links targeted to "sample" pointing to it. This page ranks position 8. Effectively this is optimising the deeper page for the same keyword as for the home page through internal anchir text. This deeper page must exist as it has much more detailed information about the product. We want the homepage to rank highest and I'm trying to figure out if we are confusing Google and splitting authority between 2 pages. Best result for us would be to have homepage in position 1 and the deeper page can disappear (total visits would increase). So the question is, is there a solution to do this? My initial thought was use canonical tag on the www.example.com/sample page specifiying www.example.com. Can we do this? Its not duplicate content. Other option I considered is to nofollow links to the deeper page. Again not sure if this will have positive or negative impact. My fear is by removing 40 odd internal links with "sample" anchor text will reduce relevancy of the domain as a whole for the "sample" keyword. Any help much appreciated! Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
Strategy for dealing with keyword variants
I'd like your opinion on the strategy of dealing with key phrase variants: I've got a page that is ranking in the top 10 and top 3 for about 10 different variations of the same phrase. Seomoz gives it terrible grades for all but one of the keyphrases. Which course of action do you recommend : ----------- create new pages ------------ Create new pages for each variant and get them to grade A. If I go this route what sort of cross linking scheme should I use between this pages? ---------- improve existing page ----------- Try to make my single page rank better for all the phrases by doing extra on-page work so the page has a better grade for all of the variants? Many thanks for your ideas and opinions.
On-Page Optimization | | PillarMarketing0 -
How would you deal with eCommerce sorts?
I am reviewing a website that has different activities, and there are many ways to sort them. The issue is that the website is essentially displaying the same information, but in different sorts. Take a look at this search page: http://www.kijubi.com/AC-Fishing You are looking for fishing trips here, but you can sort it by city, region, and category. I have decided to "no index" some of these sorts, but I am afraid they might be picking up some long tail traffic on the city and region sorts. For example, "newport beach fishing trips", something like that. Any suggestions on how to deal with removing all of these duplicate sorts, while still maintaining the traffic that may be received by sorting with some long tail terms?
On-Page Optimization | | CindyAlbright0 -
Page title = h1, or slight variation of it?
I recently found a new SEO tool http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation/ It is fast, and has found some site tweaks I need to make. There is a free demo version that crawls up to 500 URIs. I recommend you check it out (I'm not affiliated). One of the conditions it checks for is if your page <title>is exactly equal to your <h1> tag. The fact that they flag it makes me wonder if that's something I should avoid (?).</p> <p>When I googled it I found a variety of opinions. When I looked at Rand's excellent piece on the perfectly optimized page http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization I notice that the example Page Title and H1 are slightly different. By design, or a happy coincidence?</p> <p>Any opinions on whether I should make my Page Titles slightly different than my H1 tags to avoid the appearance of over optimization, or some other penalty?</p></title>
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0