'And' vs '&'
-
Hi everyone
This question has been running through my mind since a few days now. Does Google recognise 'and' / '&' as the same?
Say for example my website url is: appleandorange.com and my keyword for my company is Apple & Orange. If i Focus on Apple & Orange for on-page SEO will google also recognise apple and orange ? Or will I have to on-page SEO seperately for Apple and orange?
So for instance if I keep focusing on Apple & Orange will my website appleandorange.com appear on google?
Thanks in advance
-
A quick way to check for an association in Google is to search and see what is highlighted. I chose to search for "Barnes and Noble" who reside on barnesandnoble.com and whose brand is Barnes & Noble. The answer is that no, they are not associated, but that doesn't mean that your site won't show. Obviously Barnes & Noble has established themselves as a brand and will show if you search with and or &.
-
You can use both interchangeably. Search engines can parse a domain name like appleandoranges.com into apple and oranges fairly quickly with a few other signals. That's just an example though, when using whatever it is that you're trying to rank you'll need to take into consideration the strengths of the results that are currently in place: backlink profile, social presence, on-going work, etc. Cheers!
-
Dear Ryan
Appreciate your quick response and your straight forward answer!
So I should focus on optimising Apple & Oranges so when people type 'Apple and oranges' on google my website appleandoranges.com is more likely to come up?
Thanks once again
-
Hi Uzair. Per Google, most punctuation is ignored (https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433) the & sign included. That said, a lot of times you'll see the & symbol in title tags due to it being shorter than 'and' and thus allowing more characters. In most cases the differences between using 'and' vs '&' are so miniscule you won't have to spend any time optimizing for them as separate entities. Cheers!
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
-
I understand it's been asked before, however moz staff is telling me keyword's capitalization is treated as a separate keyword.
So there I was looking through my rankings like every other day, when I see a lowercase and uppercase version of a keyword. Most times I see this, I see them with the same rankings, and even researched this about 5 months ago, when I came to the conclusion that google treats them the same way. However, this day I saw them as different ranks, same keyword, only capitalized 1st letter of the 2 word keyword. I asked moz staff about this, as I felt it was an error. But was met with the answer that google does indeed treat these keywords differently. My line of thought was that the rank checker didn't check both the lowercase and uppercase keyword at the same time, and SERPs happened to change when the second word was checked for rank, returning a different rank. So now, I am in doubt again, as to uppercase and lowercase keywords being different or the same in google's eyes? I honestly don't know why a uppercase keyword would have different motive from searcher than a lowercase when many time not, searchers can't even spell the keyword correctly.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
Best way to find the best keywords to write Q&A
Hi All, Best way to find the best keywords to write Q&A I have a celebrity website where people ask questions about Movies and celebrities. Now how can i create some content based on keywords so i can get some better traffic? Or is this method a waste of time?
Keyword Research | | jomin740 -
'key word' SEO question
Does having ' ' around your keyword/phrase within the content on your website have an effect on SEO for that keyword?
Keyword Research | | MeridianGroup
For example, in the copy of my site, we reference 'buy local' instead of buy local. I am trying to optimize for buy local and I am wondering if the apostrophes are getting in the way? Thank you so much! -Sam0 -
Wouldn't this be an issue of duplicate content?
I'm currently in the beginning stages of doing SEO analysis for a new client. They're an IT support company here in Phoenix, AZ. In doing some keyword research and competitive research, I've noticed that one of their competitors (who ranks in the top 3 for many of the targeted keywords), is doing something that I thought would surely be a duplicate content issue. On their home page, they have dozens of links of zip codes in the Phoenix area. Each link leads to a page devoted to that zip code. Each page is identical, except that the zip code is changed in the header tag. Most of these zip code pages are indexed in Google. Isn't this an example of duplicate content, or better yet, content spamming? I've seen this thing quite a bit with high ranking sites, and I thought these were the kinds of things that were getting taken care of in the post "Panda" era. I might just be misunderstanding this whole thing, but any guidance or intel would be greatly appreciated.
Keyword Research | | creybot0 -
Can I Trace The Keywords From a PPC & SEO Campaign That Brought The individual To My Site Without Using a Call Tracking Service?
Hi All I was wondering if it is possible to trace the individual keywords/key-phrases that someone has used to get them to my pages/site and if they came in from PPC or SEO, preferably without having to use a call tracking service, code under number, or multi-telephone line system? Regards Nic
Keyword Research | | KDWeb0 -
What Tools Can Be Used To Determine Kw's I Should Be Optimizing For ?
What Tools Can Be Used To Determine Kw's I Should Be Optimizing For ? My concern is that I may be optimizing certain pages with wrong kw phrases and building backlinks to wrong kw phrases that are not a good conversion keyword for the services that I am selling. What are the various ways and tools that can be used to determine if I am optimizing for the right kw's phrases and not the wrong ones that will not convert into a lead from the optin form. I am wondering if ppc spy tools such as spyfu, semrush help me identify if I in fact am opitimizing for the right kw's ?
Keyword Research | | helpwanted0 -
How trustworthy is Google's Keyword Tool for organic search research?
Can anyone (not Google affliated) explain to me where Google's data really comes from in their Keyword Tool? Is it at all based on organic search? Or only on Google Ads related data? I know there was some controversy back in June '10 and the Google remedied the return of suggested keywords but I can't seem to get a clear answer (other than from the Google blog itself) whether the search volumes returned are truly indicative of organic search. Am I relying on the wrong tool? Do those more savvy than I only rely on the keyword tool for PPC research. Please help! I'm obsessing over my numbers here. 🙂
Keyword Research | | lhutt0 -
''furnace filter'' or ''furnaces filters'' Broad or Exact???
Those keywords are the one that will bring the most traffics. They are the one I should use, what will be your recommendations for bring more traffic to home page, using furnace filters or furnace filters? These are the results from Keytools Google: furnace filter (broad local search local): 12,100 furnace filter (exact mach local search) 390 furnace filters (broad local search): 5,400 furnace filters (exact mach local search): 880 After selecting one keyword, should I optimize one page for the other keyword? Thank you for your help. BigBlaze
Keyword Research | | BigBlaze2050