Optimizing for Lawyer vs Attorney Words
-
With Hummingbird update, my client's personal injury lawyer site went from very good positions for top terms in Google to oblivion. The site had primary landing pages for parallel terms such as "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney", among other.
He does work in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, so we focus on key phrases for both "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer" and "Pennsylvania dog bite lawyer" etc.
I've decided to investigate siloing more deeply, but am unsure whether Google now considers attorney searches to be the same as lawyer searches, which would mean we would silo for "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia" not "Attorney" and "Lawyer".
Any real world experience in this anyone? Thanks
-
I read an article that explains a little bit more on what you are addressing here: link removed by admin
-
Thanks Cyrus. I guess I really should not have written any thing but the word SILO!
The entire first part of my discussion item was for background and example. I simply stated that I was "unsure if Google treated them the same". My question is discussed in the third paragraph and located in the fourth paragraph (if readers would pay close attention -- tip, a question mark at the end of sentence means it is a question) and is whether or not anyone has real, tested, experience that would indicate that it makes sense to Silo for the two terms by creating two separate silos.
That said, I have gotten the opinion from Danny Sullivan directly that he believes (and I'm paraphrasing) that Google has long treated the two as synonyms and that there should be no need to silo.
And (to your points Cyrus), I agree as long as the pages have unique content there should be no "penalty", which I always do anyway. That is simple SEO 101, but I include it for future generations reading this thread
-
I don't have any real world experience with these terms, but if I understand correctly, your asking if Google is treating the intent of "lawyer" and "attorney" as the same.
The only way I know to investigate is to search Google for similar terms, like Seattle Lawyer and Seattle Attorney. If we do this for a dozen searches there seems to be some overlap of intent, but it's certainly not 100%.
That said, I think Google would interpret "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney" as pretty darn close semantic matches, which if overdone could lead to a Panda, duplicate content like situation. I'd probably try to target these terms on the same page, and consolidate my unique content as much as possible.
Hope this helps! Best of luck.
-
Hi JCDenver,
Hang in there. I've asked for extra help from our staff on your question. It could be that the way it was originally phrased has caused some confusion, but you have provided good details and I do hope you'll get a helpful answer soon. Thanks for your patience!
-
Do tell what is clear then...
I see a mix of results, and without all the other variables that go into the rankings, they look just like the results I used to get when I optimized the two terms as separate terms. Sometimes Google showed my attorney keyphrase searches as the home page that was optimized for lawyer. Sometimes they showed it for lawyer.
-
Our primary key phrase for the site is "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer"... has only tangential relationship to the reference of "Philadelphia lawyer" historic meaning. Again, please focus on the actual question please.
-
Maybe you should explain in more detail?
On a tangent..... You know that "Philadelphia Lawyer" is an ancient term with very different meaning that "Philadelphia Attorney"?
-
Hi JCDenver,
I'm sorry I misunderstood your question. Let me ping our other staff members for you to see if anyone has experimented with this. I hope you will receive an on-target answer.
-
I thought that you got a really good answer, and if you do those two searches and compare side by site... the answer is pretty clear.
-
I'm not referring to Local. I am asking about siloing a website.
-
It is not what I was asking.
-
Hi JCDenver,
First, I want to zone in on your statement about the Hummingbird Update. When I think of this in connection with Local SEO and lost rankings, the first thing that springs to mind is this situation:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/01/08/mining-for-google-hummingbird-guano-in-so-cal/
Are you talking about this? Have the results for your target city morphed into a single one-box for a spammy listing? Wanted to ask about this first.
Regarding lawyer vs. attorney, the important thing to find out is how your regional audience searches. Lawyer vs. Attorney is a classic example of this, as apparently, people in different parts of the US prefer one keyword over another. See the comments from Linda Buquet on this post regarding this:
http://searchengineland.com/google-merges-insights-for-search-with-google-trends-134629
This would be something you would need to further investigate, as it has become a bit harder to surface these regional differences. Hope this gets you started.
-
This might seem like a super simplified answer but just google the terms you're concerned about and that should answer your question as to how google is treating certain KWs. Use an incognito window to do so or read up more technical ways http://moz.com/blog/face-off-4-ways-to-de-personalize-google. De personalizing will allow you to see a better picture of how the terms get treated.
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
-
Content strategy for landing pages: Topics vs Features
Hi all, We are going to create new landing pages and optimise existing pages. We have a confusion on how to employ content on these pages....whether these will be filled with content to rank for "topics" and "keywords" or direclty jump into the features are are providing. If we go with first, users may feel boring about teaching them about that topic, if we go with latter...it's hard to rank being no related content to rank for that topic. I have seen some of the websites are employing multiple landing pages where they fill with topic related content and then link to features pages. I need suggestions here. Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
We are being penalized for one specific key word (and phrases it appears in), how can we figure out why?
Overall our SEO efforts have worked well, slow and steady increases in rankings across the board for all products and categories, EXCEPT for one particular brand name. Key words and phrases for that brand consistently under perform all other key words and phrases. Strategies etc. are the same, and we have not received any notifications about 'manual action' but I'm convinced there is something affecting our ranking on that brand. This has been going on for approximately two years, prior to that we ranked very well for this brand. What sorts of tests can I run to try and find the problem?
Algorithm Updates | | absoauto0 -
Confused about PageSpeed Insights vs Site Load for SEO Benefit?
I was comparing sites with a friend of mine, and I have a higher PageSpeed Insights score for mobile and desktop than he does, but he his google analytics has his page load speed higher than. So assuming all things equal, some quality of conent, links, etc, is it better to have a site with a higher PageSpeed score or faster site load? To me, it makes more sense for it to be the latter, but if that's true, what's the point of the PageSpeed insights? Thanks for your help! I appreciate it. Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Does articles for SEO purposes have a minimal and maximum word count in ordered to be crawled/indexed by Google and other search engines?
Does articles for SEO purposes have a minimal and maximum word count in ordered to be crawled/indexed by Google and other search engines?
Algorithm Updates | | WebRiverGroup0 -
PR Directory Vs Non PR Directory
Hello Guys, i thought to do some directory submission for my website, i am little confused. I have list of page rank directory and non pr directory. Can anyone suggest me which one shall i prefer most. **Getting approved by pr directory takes long time, so shall i prefer non pr directory to get my listing approved fast. ** please suggest me which one i have to prefer, if anyone have fast pr approval directory list please share. Thanks In Advance
Algorithm Updates | | sumit600 -
Top 5 most optimized websites
Throwing this question out to the community but was wondering if anyone can direct me on how I can find the top 5 or 10 ten sites that have been most optimized for search engines. Meaning which web sites have the best reputation when it comes to website optimization for search engines or is there a resource where I can read about websites that have been ranked as the best when it comes to following best practices and have constantly ranked well within their industry? Figured it's always a good idea to learn from the best by looking at what they are doing. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | DRTBA2 -
Plural vs non-plural domain name
I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | ydop0 -
Is a slash just as good as buying a country specific domain? .com/de vs .de
I guess this question comes in a few parts: 1. Would Google read a 2-letter country code that is after the domain name (after the slash) and recognize it as a location (targeting that country)? Or does is just read it as it would a word. eg. www.marketing.com/de for a microsite for the Germans www.marketing.com/fr for a microsite for the French Or would it read the de and fr as words (not locations) in the url. In which case, would it have worse SEO (as people would tend to search "marketing france" not "marketing fr")? 2. Which is better for SEO and rankings? Separate country specific domains: www.marketing.de and www.marketing.fr OR the use of subfolders in the url: www.marketing.com/de and www.marketing.com/fr
Algorithm Updates | | richardstrange0