'And' vs '&'
-
Hi everyone
This question has been running through my mind since a few days now. Does Google recognise 'and' / '&' as the same?
Say for example my website url is: appleandorange.com and my keyword for my company is Apple & Orange. If i Focus on Apple & Orange for on-page SEO will google also recognise apple and orange ? Or will I have to on-page SEO seperately for Apple and orange?
So for instance if I keep focusing on Apple & Orange will my website appleandorange.com appear on google?
Thanks in advance
-
A quick way to check for an association in Google is to search and see what is highlighted. I chose to search for "Barnes and Noble" who reside on barnesandnoble.com and whose brand is Barnes & Noble. The answer is that no, they are not associated, but that doesn't mean that your site won't show. Obviously Barnes & Noble has established themselves as a brand and will show if you search with and or &.
-
You can use both interchangeably. Search engines can parse a domain name like appleandoranges.com into apple and oranges fairly quickly with a few other signals. That's just an example though, when using whatever it is that you're trying to rank you'll need to take into consideration the strengths of the results that are currently in place: backlink profile, social presence, on-going work, etc. Cheers!
-
Dear Ryan
Appreciate your quick response and your straight forward answer!
So I should focus on optimising Apple & Oranges so when people type 'Apple and oranges' on google my website appleandoranges.com is more likely to come up?
Thanks once again
-
Hi Uzair. Per Google, most punctuation is ignored (https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433) the & sign included. That said, a lot of times you'll see the & symbol in title tags due to it being shorter than 'and' and thus allowing more characters. In most cases the differences between using 'and' vs '&' are so miniscule you won't have to spend any time optimizing for them as separate entities. Cheers!
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
-
UK vs. United Kingdom, which to use in URL?
The page supports information for our partners in the UK.... but from an SEO perspective which will Google understand better in the URL... UK or United Kingdom?
Keyword Research | | EdTechTeam0 -
Is there ever a time when we shouldn't care about content showing in search?
I often get push back from our content team about optimizing blogs for organic search. They'll say things like "but this isn't relevant for search" or "well, this is intended for people who come directly to our blog, I don't think it'll matter if it shows up in search." This is especially true when we publish product announcements and customer case studies. As an SEO, my opinion is definitely biased, but I 100% disagree and believe that search is relevant for every piece of content -- it's just that we might approach SEO differently for a product announcement (i.e. looking at branded search queries) vs. a more general "how to create an editorial calendar" type post. Would like to hear thoughts from the Moz community, though: what do you think? Is there ever a time when search isn't relevant for a blog post? Ever a time when we should skip the keyword/phrase research and tracking? Why or why not?
Keyword Research | | AsanaOps0 -
Help - my site is losing rank fast and I don't know what I've done!
My site Easigrass.com had been ranking well but recently it's started to fall in the ranks. I don't know why but I've fallen 4 places on the last 2 months for the keyword 'artificial grass'. anyone willing to take a look and throw me there thoughts?
Keyword Research | | Easigrass1 -
Used 'wrong' keywords in blog posts, should I go back and edit?
I have a bout 70 blog articles spanning about 2 years. Because I hadn't done proper SEO research, I used the term I thought made the most sense when talking about my services. However now that I have done my homework, I realize that the term I like, is not actually the term most people use to search. Very few of these articles are time sensitive and mostly generic best practice kind of stuff. I'm not talking about keyword stuffing, simply going back and replacing one poorly chosen keyword with one that people are actually searching for where it occurs naturally in the course of the article. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Keyword Research | | sea2dca0 -
All In One SEO Plugin & Titles
When I first started blogging I hired a company to design and develop my website. They provided SEO training which I've followed religiously but now I'm starting to wonder (after researching more and more about SEO) if by following these guidelines I may be placing myself in jeopardy. I write a blog about desserts. I was told that my SEO title should be different than my blog post title and I should incorporate a few different keywords in the title, write a meta description inserting a few keywords, and also attach 10 keywords, ie here is a typical post: Dark Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Cherry Ganache - post title Moist Chocolate Cake-Chocolate Ganache Cake-Chocolate Cherry Cake - SEO title Find recipe for quick and easy, moist Dark Chocolate Cake topped with Chocolate Cherry Ganache & fresh cherries & other Chocolate Desserts at Grace's Sweet Life. how to make chocolate cake, best chocolate cake, chocolate cake from scratch, best chocolate cake recipe, moist chocolate cake, simple chocolate cake, easy chocolate cake, homemade chocolate cake, chocolate cherry cake, chocolate fudge cake, chocolate ganache recipe I've come to realize that I really don't know how to keyword search (not so much how to search for phrases but how to implement them properly) and I'm wondering if there's such a thing as "hiring a trainer or consultant" to put me on the appropriate path for keyword research.
Keyword Research | | gracessweetlife0 -
Organic vs Places (Maps) Searches
I realize one can use the google adwords keyword tool to get rough organic search volume, but Is there a method to see how much a keyword is searched within specifically google places? That is, seperated out from the organic search? Ideally i would like to see how often certain keywords are search for in google, v.s. in google places/maps directly. maybe it is not possible. cheers, storwell
Keyword Research | | adriandg0 -
Google Keyword Tool Doesn't Include Related Searches
For the same keyword phrase,the Google Adwords Keyword Tool complete list of keyword ideas does not contain all the keyword phrases that appear in "searches related to..." at the bottom of the page when you plug the same keyword phrase into Google. Can anyone tell me why not?
Keyword Research | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Is there a pro tool or google service that I can use to see which sites rank for certain terms? Without having to first identify the url's?
For example I want to see the top 20 sites in order of ranking for top keywords in my industry. Without having to know in advance the url's.
Keyword Research | | CURT-208170