29 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Welcome, Newsphinx!

Jill

[WWIB]

Clarification question:
Is my understanding correct that if 500 sites all link back to a gift site with the link "teenage birthday gifts" that fact likely increases the gift site's rankings for that specific phrase? Does it also help with subsets of the keyword phrase, such as "teenage gifts," "birthday gifts," and "teenage birthday?"

[BrianR]

That's a good question, WWIB.

I don't know the answer, but I'm hoping someone else does, because I'd like to know too!

BrianR

[mcanerin]

Is my understanding correct that if 500 sites all link back to a gift site with the link "teenage birthday gifts" that fact likely increases the gift site's rankings for that specific phrase? Does it also help with subsets of the keyword phrase, such as "teenage gifts," "birthday gifts," and "teenage birthday?"

Yes.

See this thread for an interesting example of it:


http://www.highranki...wtopic=1428&hl=

Ian

[BrianR]

Thanks, Ian

So do I take it that you answered 'Yes' to BOTH of WWIB's questions?? - ie. Yes and yes.

BrianR

[mcanerin]

Yes

<snicker>

[BrianR]

I could get REALLY silly here, but I'm being strong and resisting the temptation!

I'l just say a nice polite: 'Thank you, Ian' and call it a night...

BrianR

[Eschtruth Harrison]

What's this singular OR plural? Of course "both" is the answer. You can check wordtracker.com to determine which is the most popular. Then focus your home page on the most popular (let's say the singular form). You can use another page (perhaps a product specific page) to hammer home the other form (for example plural).

[McFox]

Google distinguishes between singular and plural.

Most other SE's are the same. I think the only exception to this is Ask / Teoma

McFox

[Jill]

Nope, Teoma also sees a difference between singular and plural.

IMO, it would be silly for an engine to treat them the same.

Jill

[OldWelshGuy]

If the copy is good, and there is enough of it, then you should automatically use both words, as you would in normal conversation.


I have found that both will appear provided you write your copy as you would speak and do not try to 'plug' keywords into it.

[btreloar]

So, then . . . am I deceiving myself? (Wouldn't be the first time, I suppose.)

When the plural form of a word includes the singular, I've been optimizing for the plural because the singular version of the word or phrase is included within the plural. Even if the singular is a more popular search term than the plural version. AFter all, it's included.

Maybe I'm missing the boat? In a quick search for "widgets" I noted the three top sites. THen I searched for "widget", hoping to see those plural sites well represented. I didn't find them in the first 15 pages of results.

Has anyone done any explicit research on this? Is there a definitive answer? Or at least a consensus opinion?

Thanks!
Bill

[Scottie]

Example:

Day has a different context than Days

If I were searching for a Days Inn or an author named Days, I would not be pleased to see a bunch of results for the word "day".

Searches must be specific to singluar or plural because in many cases they are totally different words. Search engines will not return a search for a partial word.

So if you want to capture traffic for both the singular and plural, you'll want to use both versions in the site.

[Jill]

When the plural form of a word includes the singular, I've been optimizing for the plural because the singular version of the word or phrase is included within the plural.

Nope, it doesn't.

The singular form is the singular and the plural form is the plural. The search engines don't look for the singular within the plural (although they do have the capability if they wanted to).

Jill

[mcanerin]

As another example, if you did a search for "widgets" and a highly ranked site that happens to use "gets" a lot on it's page wouldn't exactly be a good result. Returning partial word results becomes less and less of a good idea as your database becomes larger and larger.

You also can't rely on just removing the "s" (though you could if people used advanced searches, which they usually don't), since for example, you get things like Goose / Geese.

And don't get me started on optimising for "ake mushrooms"


Ian