13 replies to this topic

[wfoody]

Alright this is going to be a two part question.

1. I know google recognizes synonyms (http://searchenginel...-synonyms-14632) I would like to know what peoples thoughts are on useing a title tag such as Chiropractor in (Town)(State) | (area) Chiropractic | Chiropractors (zipcode). Do you feel that google is looking at this as three seperate keyword phrases?

2. If it is seen as a synonym why do the search results change when i search for chiropractic, chiropractor or chiropractors? If they truly are counting these as synonyms the results would generally stay the same. In webmaster tools google does group all three of these words together in the Optimization/Content Keywords section.

Please give me your thoughts.

[chrishirst]

thoughts are on useing a title tag such as Chiropractor in (Town)(State) | (area) Chiropractic | Chiropractors (zipcode)

OTT and bordering on completely desperate keyword stuffing.

[wfoody]

what is OTT? I can understand the keyword stuffing aspect. but I am not repeating, only using the synonms.

[Jill]

It's not necessary and would look like keyword stuffing. Post Panda and Pengiun, less is more.

[wfoody]

Do you have a suggestion on what you would use?

And

2. If it is seen as a synonym why do the search results change when i search for chiropractic, chiropractor or chiropractors? If they truly are counting these as synonyms the results would generally stay the same. In webmaster tools google does group all three of these words together in the Optimization/Content Keywords section.

Edited by wfoody, 28 June 2012 - 05:46 PM.

[chrishirst]

OTT = Over The Top = "over" optimising (which is actually impossible) = Keyword "stuffing = Spamming.

[chrishirst]

Oh! And.

chiropractic, chiropractor, chiropractors are NOT synonyms.

"chiropractors" is the plural of "chiropractor"

chiropractic is the name give to what chiropractors do.

[Mikl]

The words might be synonyms, but they are still different words.

If you search for chiropractors, Google might well return pages that don't contain that word, but do contain chiropractic. But that doesn't mean it will give the two terms equal weight. On the contrary, you would expect it give a higher priority to a page that contains an exact match, and a slightly lower one to a page that contains a different form of the word.

In any case, this is probably a bad example. As Chris says, these particular words are not synomyms.

Mike

[piskie]

Ask your self what a "Requirer" would ask Google.
For example I doubt very much if (area) Chiropractic would be forefront in most of their minds.

[wfoody]

Ok they are not synonyms I can agree with that. But when I look in webmaster tools these words are grouped together. Which leads me to believe that google is reading these terms as being very similer.



If you look for a local chiropractor in any area you will find title tags like the one I have offered ranking very well.

[Jill]

They do seem them as very similar, which is why you'll see them highlight words other than the ones you searched for in the search results. But they are not *exactly* the same, which is why the search results will also differ depending on what you search on.

I saw a crazy one the other day where the page that was #1 only had the synonym on the page (like once) and not the real search term at all. It was a fairly competitive term too, so not sure why Google chose the page it chose. In fact, it wasn't all that relevant. The only thing was it had like hundreds of thousands of links (big brand) so I guess that was it. Not exactly sure what the anchors were for all those links as I didn't dig that deeply.

[wfoody]

The words might be synonyms, but they are still different words.

If you search for chiropractors, Google might well return pages that don't contain that word, but do contain chiropractic. But that doesn't mean it will give the two terms equal weight. On the contrary, you would expect it give a higher priority to a page that contains an exact match, and a slightly lower one to a page that contains a different form of the word.

In any case, this is probably a bad example. As Chris says, these particular words are not synomyms.

Mike

You say this is a bad example but if you would please do a search for the three terms you will see are grouped as "similar" words. Google does bring up results as Jill says that only have the word a few amount of times. For the particular word i choose, I have seen pages with do exactly what she said without having many back links at all. I know there are many factors that are wieghing into this but for small local businesses, I dont have to deal with these "big brands".

[qwerty]

The words aren't synonyms, but they're certainly related. A chiropractor performs chiropractic services. If a chiropractor joins a chiropractic practice, there are bound to be multiple chiropractors working there.

The important thing is that if I'm searching for a local chiropractor, I'm likely to be satisfied with a SERP that includes a page optimized for chiropractic clinic. The question is whether a page optimized for chiropractic clinic can beat a page optimized for chiropractor on a search for chiropractor. Yeah, it can happen, for lots of different reasons. And Google might even present a title different from the one on the actual page in order to indicate that they think the page is sufficiently relevant.

[MarcP]

They do seem them as very similar, which is why you'll see them highlight words other than the ones you searched for in the search results. But they are not *exactly* the same, which is why the search results will also differ depending on what you search on.

I saw a crazy one the other day where the page that was #1 only had the synonym on the page (like once) and not the real search term at all. It was a fairly competitive term too, so not sure why Google chose the page it chose. In fact, it wasn't all that relevant. The only thing was it had like hundreds of thousands of links (big brand) so I guess that was it. Not exactly sure what the anchors were for all those links as I didn't dig that deeply.

I've read on a couple of other SEO blogs that Google considers variations of keyword. An example is keyword cup. tumbler is a variation and I've seen it when searching for cups.