Bad Grammar's Effect on Rankings
-
Mozzers,
I have a client who's brand style guide dictates that they write in all lowercase letters. Do you think this will hurt rankings?
Nails
-
Hi,
Google wants to offer the best experience. If the website's grammar is a disaster, it might prefer better presented content.
Another thing is visitors - they too want the best experience. Moreover, there is a trust issue when the website looks like the content was created overnight by an illiterate person. This will look like the company cannot afford to employ educated people, not mentioning proofreaders. This will certainly result in higher bounce rates, unless the grammar errors are entertaining and reading the content is actually fun! I would suggest to you to mention this to your client, editing doesn't need to be expensive.
Good luck!
Katarina
-
I absolutely have...Now to convince the company
thanks, EGOL
Nails
-
Today errors of grammar and spelling raise suspicions that have averted terrorist attacks and financial crimes. Two thousand years ago, the inability to properly pronounce the response to a night sentry's greeting was used to foil enemy attacks.
I've deleted many email solicitations because they have bad grammar or spelling. I've left websites for the same reason. Have you ever done that?
-
Thanks, EGOL. I always appreciate your wisdom!
Nails
-
I believe that you will have two worries.... 1) what Google thinks, and if they will demote for this; and, 2) what visitors think, and if that causes them to engage the site less.
The more visitors that the site has who care about grammar the larger the impact from engagement and perhaps Google cares more about good grammar for some subjects than others.
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
-
Google June Core update massive drop in visibility and rank
Following Google Core update in June, I noticed that some websites has seen small improvements or stayed on same positions in SERPs, but our website received nearly 60% visibility drop. Now, after two weeks, some keywords shows "slight" improvement, while majority of keywords still sits on quite low places in searches. Even others big brands got hit after update, but some competitors didn't and overtook our positions. Anyone else noticed any patterns after update and can share some thoughts? Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | Optimal_Strategies1 -
I'm Pulling Hairs! - Duplicate Content Issue on 3 Sites
Hi, I'm an SEO intern trying to solve a duplicate content issue on three wine retailer sites. I have read up on the Moz Blog Posts and other helpful articles that were flooded with information on how to fix duplicate content. However, I have tried using canonical tags for duplicates and redirects for expiring pages on these sites and it hasn't fixed the duplicate content problem. My Moz report indicated that we have 1000s of duplicates content pages. I understand that it's a common problem among other e-commerce sites and the way we create landing pages and apply dynamic search results pages kind of conflicts with our SEO progress. Sometimes we'll create landing pages with the same URLs as an older landing page that expired. Unfortunately, I can't go around this problem since this is how customer marketing and recruitment manage their offers and landing pages. Would it be best to nofollow these expired pages or redirect them? Also I tried to use self-referencing canonical tags and canonical tags that point to the higher authority on search results pages and even though it worked for some pages on the site, it didn't work for a lot of the other search result pages. Is there something that we can do to these search result pages that will let google understand that these search results pages on our site are original pages? There are a lot of factors that I can't change and I'm kind of concerned that the three sites won't rank as well and also drive traffic that won't convert on the site. I understand that Google won't penalize your sites with duplicate content unless it's spammy. So If I can't fix these errors -- since the company I work conducts business where we won't ever run out of duplicate content -- Is it worth going on to other priorities in SEO like Keyword research, On/Off page optimization? Or should we really concentrate on fixing these technical issues before doing anything else? I'm curious to know what you think. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | drewstorys0 -
What Ranking Factors Impact Google News Visibility?
I'm just at the beginning of a new analysis involving Google News visibility and ranking factors, and thought I could put the project out to you, dear SEO geniuses, to get your ideas and perspectives. Backgrounder: My company operates over 50 niche, disease-specific daily news sites, covering science, research and advocacy news about specific diseases. Virtually all of them are in Google News. They range in age from 3 years old to 3 months old. Varying degrees of page rank / authority Content on the site is completely niche to specific diseases, and we have a lot of sites for rare and orphan diseases. Most of the content is news, but we also have info/resources pages, blogs, and some short-form posts made for use in social media. The Project: I want to do an analysis of keywords in our news headlines and see how certain keywords correlate with articles that do well -- both in terms of search traffic and overall with users. Going to use our Multiple Sclerosis News Today website. Most of our search traffic comes from Google News. What I hope to gain: I'm curious to see if certain sets of keywords that relate to the disease, to therapies, etc. drive the most traffic. I want to compare these keyword lists to how well we rank in organic search for the same keywords (via news articles or info pages) to see if there is a connection. I want to also create a working keyword list of the best-performing keywords in the news as a way of cross-pollinating content production on our blogs, info pages, social content, etc. I want to increase my knowledge base of ranking factors specific for Google News. The last point is really something I wish I knew more about. I feel like there aren't many knowledge resources out there about Google News. Is it safe to assume that the same on-site and off-site SEO best practices that govern organic search engine visibility are at play in Google News, or are there independent factors as well? I'd love to get your thoughts. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Michael_Nace0 -
What's the best way to go about building/using interactive snippets?
I'm starting to see interactive snippets (I guess they're called islands) like the attached image in our SERPs, so I figured I would look into experimenting with them, but I'm not entirely clear how to proceed. I have only seen them in adwords, so is that the only way you can use them? Is there some way to set them up or some service you need to set them up organically? Lost, but intrigued, Ruben SW7ak4d.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How important is Social Media for building domain authority / Google rankings? Are there any cases?
I really would like to know if someone tested the importance of Social Media for Google rankings.
Algorithm Updates | | Seeders
Are there some sites who build authority only by doing good social media?
Ofcourse, I know it is all about the mix (content, linkbuilding, social media, etc.) but how important is it?
I know many sites who rank good without any form of social media, but I do not know any sites who do only social media and rank high. I hope there are some good cases which give good insight. ps. I know it becomes more and more important...0 -
Number of Items As a Google Ranking Factor??
If I search for "hiking boots" and scan down the SERPs I see the following... Google reports "483 items" for the Zappos.com page. Google reports "Results 1 - 36 of 85" for the Shoebuy.com page (and that does not appear in their code). So, Google is obviously paying attention to the depth of your information or the number of items that you are showing. If they think that is important enough to count and report in the SERPs, might they also be using that information as a ranking factor?? PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR SEO: If google is using this information, perhaps people should list all of their color, size, etc variants on a single page. For example if you sell widgets in five colors, instead of making one page for each color, list all five on the same page.
Algorithm Updates | | EGOL1 -
Decline in traffic but no change in rankings
I'm comparing our best search traffic month in 2011 (March) with our current traffic (April)and have seen significant declines in traffic, despite no change in our rankings or even improved rankings for the same terms. Trying to sort out an explanation. We have been a white-hat SEO site since our inception over 10 years ago. Our SEO consultant doesn't think we've been affected by any algo changes, at least not to any significant degree. My only explanation for this possibly anomaly is: decrease in the use of the KW terms in search over time (how to determine?) generalized increase in PPC instead of organic search driving traffic possibility that Adv Web Rankings is no longer accurately collecting SERP rankings Does anyone have any other thoughts or considerations that might explain the decline in traffic, despite maintenance or improvement in rankings? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | ahw0 -
Ranking #1 for decent traffic keywords, but not receiving any traffic?
A site I work on is ranked number 1 for a few keywords. To see how much a keyword is searched per month I rely on Google Adwords Keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). Using this tool I see that the keyword receives 880 local monthly searches and another keyword they rank #1 for receives 1300 local monthly searches. To me these keywords are not the biggest as far as traffic but they are not small by any means. Now here is the issue. Like mentioned above, the site nmber 1 for multiple keywords. They have been ranked number 1 for these keywords for months. Looking in analytics the other day I notice that on a month to month basis both of these keywords are getting 1, or 2 visits. This past month (October) one of the keywords did not receive ANY visits, and that is being ranked #1 for a 1300 monthly searched keyword. It just doesn’t make sense. I would imagine getting at least 100 or so visits a month from these search terms. Could someone please help me understand this a little bit better?
Algorithm Updates | | WhiteHat120