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.
How do search engines score "nested" keywords?
-
I use "nested" for lack of a better term; what I mean is keyword phrases that contain other keyword phrases. For example, if I have a page that is extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "old silver coins", is that page by default also extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "silver coins"?
Or does google understand that I am optimizing for the longer phrase "old silver coins" and somehow exclude me from contention for the sub-phrase "silver coins"?
I understand that this gets more complicated when talking about backlinks (off-page), but the same general question remains. If I am getting good backlinks for "old silver coins", am I also getting good backlinks for "silver coins" at the same time?
I do understand that "silver coins" may be more competitive than "old silver coins" and so my page may not rank the same for the two phrases.
But I am really curious if there is some kind of multiplier effect with nested keyword phrases like the example I have provided, or whether google somehow only credits for the full phrase and not for any sub-phrases contained therein.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated! (And sorry if this has been addressed already. I have looked around the site and have googled this question, but haven't found anything useful yet.) Thanks.
BONUS QUESTION: Are the answers to my questions above exactly the same when discussing singular versus plural keywords ("coins" versus "coin")? After all, that is a "nested case just like my examples above. On the other hand, I can see there being some special treatment of singular and plural.
-
Pluralized terms are treated as different words.
When I search for "coin" the wiki article is first. When I search for "coins" that same article is still on the first page but at the bottom. Other pages focused on "coins" have more relevancy due to the identical match.
-
Thanks very much.
And how about the singular / plural question? Are singular and plural versions of a word treated as completely separate keywords, or are they somehow lumped together? In other words, is your answer the same with respect to "coin" versus "coins" or do the search engines return results for either if a user searches for on or the other?
Thanks again!
-
What you are asking about is relevancy. If you write an article on the topic of "old silver coins", if your page is perfectly optimized for that key phrase then your url, title, links, content will all use that phrase. Your page is still relevant for "silver coins" but all the pages which are optimized for "silver coins" will beat you assuming the other factors are equal.
When you perform a search for "silver coins" on Google.com, over 13 million results are returned. 90% of people do not look past the first page so the reality is you are competing for the top spots on the first page. If your result isn't on the first page, it doesn't really matter much.
The bottom line, yes your page would be relevant for "silver coins" but most likely it wont be relevant enough to make any meaningful difference.
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 find low difficulty keywords
how to find informative low difficulty keywords. how can I get content ideas? I have lots of content ideas but it's not good search volume on google. I have a kitchen-related affiliate website called https://gloryspy.com
Keyword Research | | MalikJan0 -
Minor languages keyword research
Hello, I am in charge of doing a keyword research for several small countries in Europe, namely Hungary, Estonia and Latvia.
Keyword Research | | Lvet
I normally use the Keyword planner for Google Ads, but for Hungarian, Estonian and Latvian this tools seems to find no results for the keywords related to my websites. For example, in Hungarian the keyword "ajak toltoanyagok" ("lip fillers" in English) doesn't give any results (and yes, I am targeting my searches to Hungary and Hungarian). I have the same problems with Latvian and Estonian. Is there another tool that I could use and that could give me better results? Help! Cheers Luca rONwtZt0 -
Keyword research tools
So I went to a panel a while back that said Wordtracker is basically useless. I'm not using it as an end-all, be-all, but more for insights and context. Do you agree with that statement? The hosting company provides a keyword research tool, so I wasn't sure how seriously to take it. Have you guys been using Bing for the search data previously provided by Google's Keyword Research Tool? Do you find that to be a viable resource? Thanks.
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
Google Keyword Tool: What is considered a unique keyword?
I'm trying to research keywords using Google's Keyword Tool. After looking at results, I have the following questions: 1. Does singular/plurals of a word count as two different keywords to Google (ie: photobooth and photobooths)? Would I need to have a unique page targeting each word or will one page on my site be sufficient for targeting both? 2. I've noticed that different variations of keywords have the same global monthly search results. This leads me to believe that Google see's all of them as one keyword. ie: "photo booth props" and "props for a photo booth" and "props with photo booth", all have 22,200 search global monthly search resluts. On the other hand "moustache prop" and "prop moustache" have different global monthly search results (480 and 590). Can anyone explain this?
Keyword Research | | Alchemist230 -
Is there an ideal ratio of keyword difficulty to search volume?
I used the keyword research tool to pull data on potential keywords, the report returns a percentage to represent the competition and difficulty of a keyword. Is there an ideal ratio of percent difficulty to search volume
Keyword Research | | AdviceElle0 -
How should I use keywords in a sentence?
The keywords that I target are phrases that wouldn't ever be used in a sentence... Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia My question is... Is it better to use the phrase, even though its odd? Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia is a great product Or is it better to make it a natural sentence? Ex: Stained Concrete in Virginia is a great product? Im trying to find a way to use my keyword phrases at least 4 times in the content of the pages...but it seems difficult if I have to use such an odd phrase. Thanks! Tim
Keyword Research | | Timvroom0 -
Is "in" a keyword differentiator?
Does google view phrases with "in" in then as different keywords than the same phrase without an "in"? For example: is "great restaurants in chicago" the same keyword as "great restaurants chicago"? Whenever I do research on two phrases like this, they always come up with the same search volume.
Keyword Research | | TheSquareFoot0 -
Keyword Research (dash or no dash)
I have a client that has been optimizing for "print and apply" for the past 5 months. Yesterday they decided it was more grammatically correct to use "print-and-apply." There question to me was "is this going to effect our SEO?" So... I checked the difficulty using the keyword analysis tool, both keywords had the same broad/exact adwords traffic as well as difficulty percentage. When reviewing the top 25 listings for each keyword it looks like the same sites rank in the SERPs between 1-8 and then after that it is completely different. So, is there a better keyword to target? Are these two keywords different enough to truly have separate search results?
Keyword Research | | kchandler
The top 8 results didn't even target "print-and-apply" in there content or title tags... Thanks for the input/discussion - Kyle0