Does Google pick up on words such as "in", "the", "and" etc?
-
If I have in my meta-title e.g Holidays Ireland, but i have in my description for grammer purposes Holidays in Ireland will google see these as 2 separate keywords and will SEOMoz grade me lower for doing this? Or is holidays Ireland included in Holidays in Ireland because google doesnt pick up on "in" ??
I would appreciate your help on this.
-
There was a time when Google simply ignored so-called "stop words", for processing efficiency, and so they two queries in your example were essentially the same. It looks like that has changed over time, though. See this post from 2008 by Bill Slawski (an expert on Google patents and technology):
http://www.seobythesea.com/2008/01/new-google-approach-to-indexing-and-stopwords/
...and a quick experiment someone did in 2010 that seems to confirm that:
http://www.dougwilliams.com/blog/seo/stop-words-does-google-ignore-these-anymore.php
In my experience, it's a bit specific to the query and competition. In many cases, the addition or subtractions of a stop word may not make much of a difference, but in your case it probably does. If the term you want to target is "Holidays in Ireland" and the Top 10 for that term seems different from the shorter term, I'd say to use "in". I'm seeing some differences between those two sets of Top 10 results (not huge, but some).
-
Thank you matthew. That helps alot.
-
Within your title tag, you shouldn't generally use connecting words like 'and', 'is', etc. Stick to just using 'Holidays Ireland' within this part of your webpage.
For the META description you should then use connecting words to make it coherent and understandable to users. The META description doesn't actually play an effect on your SEO rankings but remember that it will show keywords in bold if a user has searched for 'Holidays in Ireland', which will increase your click-through rate.
Hope this helps
Matt.
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
-
Google AMP or CDN?
Hello. I'm running a CMS that cannot currently support both CDN and Google AMP. I would have to choose one or the other. Does anyone have any insight on which may be the better choice until I can figure out how to have both? I installed CDN first to reduce the time it took for my pages/images to load. I'd like to have AMP because it can do the same, and perhaps be a little more Google friendly (their product). I would appreciate any thoughts. Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
When do Panda ranking factors apply when Google deindexes a page
Here is 2 scenarios Scenario 1 Lets say I have a site with a ton of pages (100,000+) that all have off site duplicate content. And lets say that those pages do not contain any rel="noindex" tags on them. Google then decides to de-index all those pages because of the duplicate content issue and slaps me with a Panda penalty. Since all those pages are no longer indexed by Google does the Panda Penalty still apply even though all those pages have been deindexed? Scenario 2 I add a rel="noindex" to all those 100,000+ off site duplicate content pages. Since Google sees that I have decided to not index them does the Panda penalty come off? What I am getting at is that I have realized that I have a ton of pages with off site duplicate content, even though those pages are already not indexed by Google does me by simply adding the rel="noindex" tag to them tell Google that I am trying to get rid of duplicate content and they lift the Panda penalty? The pages are useful to my users so I need them to stay. Since in both scenarios the pages are not indexed anyways, will Google acknowledge the difference in that I am removing them myself and lift the panda ban? Hope this makes sense
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
How do you find out all the keywords Google is ranking you for?
Hello, Is there anyway of finding out all the keywords that Google is currently ranking our website for so that we can then build on those keyword positions? Many thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | mblsolutions0 -
If others are reposting your content, how do you tell Google you are the original author?
A huge amount of my content is being copy and pasted to facebook, tumblr, wattpad etc... Is there an easy way to tell Google I am the original author? (How can I tell if this content theft affecting my rankings?)
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Is it bad to include google Maps in footer?
We have 5 locations and we were thinking about including a map for each location in the footer. These would be set-up as no-follow links. They could potentially enhance user experience but it also increases size of footer. Right now there are just basic links to pages (sitemap, terms, etc), contact info, social links, and contact form. If we did the maps it would also include link to the individual location pages. Not sure if we are doing too much in footer or need to just keep it basic. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | Restore0 -
Why Isn't Google Authorship Showing My Picture?
I have several clients and the Google Authorship images used display in the search results for all of them. About a month ago all of the images disappeared, however it still displays "by <name>, indicating that Google Authorship is working -- it just doesn't show the image (see screenshots). The image follows the guidelines, and we've got the rel author tag in place, with a link back to Google. </name> When I use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool it shows that authorship is properly functioning. I'm completely stumped. Does anyone have any ideas why this may not be working? Here's two examples of the sites with Authorship not working properly (screenshots below): criminalattorneylongislandny.com
On-Page Optimization | | socialfirestarter
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.53.10 PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.44.12 PM.png attorneytonyadderley.com https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.52.36 PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.52.52 PM.png0 -
Why aren't our articles ranking in Google?
We have a website promoting Pakistani lawyers online. The website also has an articles section where we post articles reviewing different legal cases and laws. All of our articles are written by actual lawyers are high quality and unique. Website itself doesn't have large page/site authority but its not a baby website either. I can't figure out why our articles don't rank on Google. Here are few of the articles:
On-Page Optimization | | Heydarian
http://www.pakistanilawyers.com/articles/pakistan-child-custody-laws-explained-479/
http://www.pakistanilawyers.com/articles/pakistan-divorce-law-476/
http://www.pakistanilawyers.com/articles/pakistani-law-insolvency-guide-460/ I don't know whether its simply because there are not enough links pointing to our website or if there is a problem in the website itself that i can't find. Thanks for the help0 -
Should I Remove This Subdirectory From Google?
On my site, I have a subdirectory. It posts articles from a bunch of websites that my readers are interested in & links back to all of those sites. There is no original content in it. There are over 1700 indexed pages in this subdirectory. The rest of my site has about 500 (all original content). The search engine traffic for this subdirectory only accounts for 3.9% of my sites overall visits. Should I consider removing this subdirectory? Could all the duplicate content be hurting the rankings of my legit pages? What do you all think?
On-Page Optimization | | PedroAndJobu0