Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I exclude prepositions in tracked keywords of moz analytics?
-
I'm new to Moz. Just set up my trial campaign, and it had suggested many keywords. Many of the phrases that were suggested do not contain prepositions.
For example, instead of something like "sporting good stores in Chicago" it suggested "sporting good stores Chicago"
Today, I looked at the on-page optimization suggestions, which are (of course) suggesting that I remove prepositions from my page to rank well.
Well, as you know, that is unnatural to the reader. But I suspect people are searching in higher volume, leaving the prepositions out. I know that if I were to search for a sporting goods store in Chicago, I would probably leave out "in."
What should I do? Should I remove all the suggested keywords, and make them readable (which people are less like using in their search?) Do I go back to all my pages and try to optimize it for a keyword that is natural, but does not include a preposition (such as Chicago sporting goods stores) or should I be doing something else?
-
I agree with Joey. Most prepositions are stop words, so they may carry less weight in the search algorithm. That's not to say they aren't important. I just searched "sporting goods stores in Atlanta" and "sporting goods stores Atlanta" and got very slightly different results for each.
The on page optimization suggestions are just suggestions to point you in the right direction based on keywords you entered into the tool. You should never sacrifice usability for your readers in order to satisfy an SEO tool. The tool is just a starting point.
-
I would say let your keyword research do the talking. The tried and true method is to use your "seed" keywords, gather all the suggestions you can, measure which keywords hold the most value for you, and look for the opportunities. If one of your best opportunities has prepositions in it, there is your answer. I'm willing to bet you'll find valuable keywords that use them.
My observation is they don't carry much weight, but with voice searching on mobile, searches can be much more "conversational" when spoken into Siri or Google voice search. We tend to keep things short when we have to type it in, right? There is also Google's Hummingbird update, semantic search and natural language processing. WordStream did a great blog on this right after Google's Hummingbird update. I highly recommend you read the whole article. Here's an especially relevant quote:
"You only have to look at how accurate Google Now has become since its introduction to see that natural language processing is going to remain a major part of Google’s plans for search."
Overall, I'd use the prepositions. Natural language is important, sounds better, and the data is probably there suggesting you should keep it.
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
-
Is Moz more accurate than Ahrefs ?
When I check my this website https://joinpakarmy.com.pk/ on Moz it gives me DA 3
Moz Bar | | joinpakarmy234
But when I check it out on Ahrefs, it tells me there is no authority for this site.
So who is more accurate in the result?
thanks0 -
How do you delete keywords in bulk?
Hi, in the 'rankings' section of one of my campaigns, I want to delete almost 200 keywords. Is there a way to delete keywords in bulk please? The only way I can find is to individually select keywords to delete but this will take too long to do with almost 200 keywords. Thanks
Moz Bar | | NavnitBB0 -
Why keywords have zero data for UAE?
I have searched for food delivery keyword for the United Arab Emirates, EN, and AR. Monthly volume has no data whereas difficulty, organic and priority has figures. When I change the country to US; monthly volume has more data. Can you explain; how can I use your service?
Moz Bar | | Twenzy1 -
Moz says "Title Too Long", Yoast says title is the perfect length. Who's right?
For a bunch of my pages, the MOZ Crawl Report says "Title Too Long". Yoast on my site tells me that the titles are the correct length. How can these two things be at odds with each other? Which one is right?
Moz Bar | | TeamViviRealEstate0 -
Does "Disallow: /xmlrpc.php" in robots.txt affect moz tools ability to fetch DA?
Just checked a website for Domain Authority using Moz' tool, however it returned 1 for DA, which should be unlikely. I have been trying to find the problem and found "Disallow: /xmlrpc.php" in robots.txt. Could this affect Moz' tools ability to get the required data?
Moz Bar | | Foli0 -
Is Keyword Explorer now providing search volume by country?
I think Keyword Explorer was only providing search volume data for the US (whereas difficulty and opportunity were available at a country level) but recently I've started to see differences between the US volume data and the UK (see examples attached). Does this mean Keyword Explorer is now providing accurate volume data for the UK and other countries? DEIKsVJ 5kels
Moz Bar | | A_Q0 -
National or local tracking of keywords
I manage an account with +20 locations and have used the default National tracking on keywords, but realized that we might see higher rankings if I choose local tracking. If any of you have any experience in this, please tell the world!
Moz Bar | | peterpumkineater0 -
Checking Do-follow using Moz Bar
Does anyone know how to check if a link is a do-follow or no-follow using the Moz bar? I believe there's a function that highlights and color codes the link so as to tell? Can't seem to turn this function on in my Moz Bar settings. Am I missing something completely obvious?
Moz Bar | | Gavo0