SEO for compound word derivatives
-
Our company offers services for nonprofit organizations and we are finding that "non profit" and "nonprofit" are both used very frequently in search queries.
I suspect Google will treat the two variations similarly but am looking for something more concrete than my anecdotal experience.
- How does Google treat compound words that are commonly searched for as multiple words?
- Any suggestions on resources or tests to find a concrete answer for "nonprofit"?
-
Google makes semantic level query assumptions by default now- that's part of the function that allows google to suggest queries as you type. To address your question more directly, it depends on the individual terms and whether or not Google is giving complete, partial, or no equivalence to those terms. Non-profit and nonprofit are treated nearly the same in organic ranking- the top results are identical and the remaining results have more variance. You can experiment with this idea and you'll see some of this phenomena.
As for "concrete evidence"- you aren't going to get it. You should study the results of your individual terms' rankings because that's exactly what Google did to weight potential results... at least, it's a part of what they did. They have a vast army of "raters" that look into the relevance of query/results and assign a value to the search engine's success/lack of success. In the end, a load of data is collected in various categorically-structured groups of search terms. Are they using the data attached to these unique categories to craft a more relevant set of results? I don't know if they are, but I find it hard to believe they flush all of that expensive data down the drain just to use an umbrella algorithm to spit out all query results.
In the end, I think you'll find that worrying about the minor difference between the two is wasted time if you're looking for a concrete answer. To avoid the pitfall, stick to a single convention on each individual page, but vary the convention from page to page. When you search one or the other, watch how Google bolds the alternate terms in the list of results.. Compare the 1st page results of the two alternate terms.. are you seeing a pattern? With the other components of SEO on-track, it effectively won't matter at all.
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 can I tell if Google considers two words to mean the same thing
For example, "wives" and "brides" They're often interchangeable, but given context they can still mean fairly different things. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
Keyword Research | | CupidTeam0 -
If I insert a "stop" word into a long tail keyword, will it break it up?
I'm in the legal industry, and a lot of the long tail keywords I'm finding are search queries that are pinpointed for my location. As a result, I come up with [subject] + [location] as good keywords... for example: "subpoena duces tecum new york." (basically it's a subpoena, just the fancy name). However, I have no clue how to use something like this in a sentence....if I say "subpoena duces tecum IN new york" does the "in" break up the keyword, or is "in" just a stop word that doesn't affect the keyword? Countless examples of similar keywords "Car accident new york" etc. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | cgs2303 -
Attorney / Lawyer SEO
Hey Guys, How do you handle keywords for an attorney going after local keywords. City, Keyword Attorney? Example: Dallas, TX DUI Attorney City, Keyword Lawyer? Example: Dallas, TX DUI Lawyer City, Keyword Attorney / Lawyers? Example: Dallas, TX DUI Attorney / Lawyer? Looking forward to good responses!
Keyword Research | | CLTMichael0 -
What do you consider a good Global Exact Match for a key word?
The following article implies that 2,400 isn’t bad……Quote from second to last paragraph of #2: “The real problem comes when you choose to target a keyword like 'ladies leather handbags' which has a broad match search volume of 2,400 but an exact match search volume of only 260” http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-keyword-research-mistakes-you-might-be-making I like to keep mine under 50% competitive. For one site which is in high competition market (as far I can see) has SEO irrelevant brand name domain, a primary key word at 51% with 2900 Global EM for page name with a secondary keyword at 44% and 590 GEM. Another site with primary domain and keyword at 50% and 1000 GEM with other keywords between 40% and 50% and GEM’s of 1300 (also a page title), 1900 (also page title), 1000 (also a page title), 2400, 5400, 14800 (niche I might work on later), 1000, 1900, 4400, 3600, 5400, 1600, 3600 (also a page title), 1300, 1000, 2900, 1300. SEO won’t be my only approach but within my competitive capability I think that’s the best I can get. So, wondering what your thoughts where on a good Global Exact Match?
Keyword Research | | Zoolander0 -
Key word query
I work for a company that sells vitamins and sports supplements. I'm just looking at the key words in google analytics that people are searching to land on our page and they don’t appear to be using any product names /ailments etc. So with that in mind how does this affect my key word strategy when it comes to adding words to the pages? I had it in mind I would be adding brand names and product types etc? Any feedback would once again be much appreciated Cheers,
Keyword Research | | dawsonski0 -
Will words added to the end of my title make the page in question less relevant in Google's eyes?
Hey guys, I've always wondered about this. Say I'm targeting the keyword "how to sell your house" but I find it a bit bland or generic and my client actually offers a service more in line with "how to sell your house quickly" - say that's their USP for example. I still want to rank for the broader version however, because far fewer people are searching for the "quickly" version - and it stands to reason that if searchers can solve the same problem quickly, they'll want that version of the solution anyway. So will adding the word "quickly" to the end of the keyword I'm targeting (and using that in my Title, H1, URL, description tags etc) make Google see my client's page/site as less relevant to a broader search term like the more generic "how to sell your house", that I'm trying to rank for? Thanks 🙂
Keyword Research | | makeshiftyy0 -
What is the relationship/difference between categories and keywords in terms of google local seo?
I know that they are very similar as search signals, but I would like to understand the exact relationship. My company is in the process of adding local seo services to our seo offerings, and we are trying to hammer out a process for determining optimal categories for businesses based on keywords we are already using for optimizing their sites. Any insights or suggestions on how best to do this would be much appreciated.
Keyword Research | | CustomCreatives0 -
Capitals in Title tags and meta descriptions and their effect on SEO
It often the case that a page of serps will show up very similar title tags eg Cheap Widgets | Widgetsrus.com format, written partly for humans and partly for SEO.. Although against Googles best practice and indeed a violation of their adwords policy would using in CAPS in title tags reduce ranking (whilst increasing visibility and CTR)?
Keyword Research | | seanmccauley0