Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google and keywords with and without accents. How to approach optimization for both?
-
This is more of a problem for people optimizing for keywords in spanish, french, german and such.
It is well known that SERPs for keywords with and without accents are different. However, I haven't been able to discover how do I make the incorrectly misspelled keywords rank without messing up the site's content.
Another fact to take into account is that more than half the searches made in these languages are done without accents because, let's face it, it's just too much work.
An example of my specific problem: The misspelled keyword "cursos de ingles" is currently ranking higher than the correctly spelled keyword "cursos de inglés". However, the misspelled keyword "clases de ingles" is not ranking at all and the correctly spelled keyword "clases de inglés" is on the first page. How is this possible?
Now, how can I optimize the misspelled keywords to rank higher without misspelling the content on my site?
Thank you!
-
Hi Bibiana,
Actually, I am the competition (own the business)But hey, nothing I am telling you is a secret and there is nothing like some good competition to make me more motivated to work.
If you are interested, send me a Private Message here on SEOmoz and we can talk more. We may be able to help each other out. It we collaborated a bit it could help both of the businesses out.Saludos y que tengas un buen día.
-
Hahaha you work for the competition!
Yes, the complete site is in Spanish, however, most of my users are not searching with accents, which is the real issue here. frustrated
P.S. Saludos desde el DF
-
I also have had to deal with this in my sites. In most cases, I actually go with the norm that the language is based in. By this I mean that if the page is in English, even if I am using a Spanish or French word, I tend not to use the accent. This is primarily because based on my statistics - I have been doing multi-language SEO for my sites for over 5 years - most people do not have their keyboards configured to make accents.
So, if somebody was looking for information on:Mexico
It is much much more likely that they would put that in google instead of:
México
Most non-tech people would struggle to figure out how to put an é, ñ or a ö on U.S. keyboards.
Of course there are some places on your site that you need to put the accents, especially if it is something like language education where they expect it to be with an accent, but otherwise I do not put them. Of course, if you have your entire page translated into Spanish or French, then put the accents in the correct places because there they will be expected and the searchers will probably look using accents. As you probably know, an accent in Spanish, French, etc can change the entire meaning of a word.
I hope this helps.
P.S. Hola desde Querétaro.
-
I once tried putting the mispelled variants in the keyword meta tag but that did nothing. Maybe you should try it? But I wouldn't expect much.
Another way is to put it into your content, but letting the reader know you mispelled it on purpose. Maybe something like "we offer clases de inglés (or clases de ingles if you can't find the accent button!)".
That way they know you mispelled it on purpose, and google still finds the word on the page.
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
-
Few pages without SSL
Hi, A website is not fully secured with a SSL certificate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdenaSEO
Approx 97% of the pages on the website are secured. A few pages are unfortunately not secured with a SSL certificate, because otherwise some functions on those pages do not work. It's a website where you can play online games. These games do not work with an SSL connection. Is there anything we have to consider or optimize?
Because, for example when we click on the secure lock icon in the browser, the following notice.
Your connection to this site is not fully secured Can this harm the Google ranking? Regards,
Tom1 -
How to rank my website in Google UK?
Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least - I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo0 -
How to measure traffic for a keyword
Sitting in Country A I want to see how much traffic a particular keyword receives in Country B. Whats the best way to do it? Also, will the search results differ if I am analyzing the above sitting in Country A viz-a-viz Country B. In other words, will the IP of the country I am making the search from play a role in the results?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__0 -
How to NOT appear in Google results in other countries?
I have ecommerce sites the only serve US and Canada. Is there a way to prevent a site from appearing in the Google results in foreign countries? The reason I ask is that we also have a lot of informational pages that folks in other countries are visiting, then leaving right after reading. This is making our overall Bounce Rate very high (64%). When we segment the GA data to look at just our US visitors, then the Bounce Rate drops a lot. (to 48%) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GregB1230 -
Will Google View Using Google Translate As Duplicate?
If I have a page in English, which exist on 100 other websites, we have a case where my website has duplicate content. What if I use Google Translate to translate the page from English to Japanese, as the only website doing this translation will my page get credit for producing original content? Or, will Google view my page as duplicate content, because Google can tell it is translated from an original English page, which runs on 100+ different websites, since Google Translate is Google's own software?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Buying a domain banned by google
Hi , I came across a super domain for my business but found out that it was a great domain with 100s of link backs but is now banned by Google search engine meaning Google does not index content from that domain. Since the domains linkbacks are from my domin does it make sense to but that domain and redirect those link backs to another (301) and hope that the new domain gets some juice ... I know it is sounding crazy and may not be the best thing to do ethically but still wanted to check if its possible to get some juice.. Rgds Avinash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Avinashmb0 -
Does Google hate wordpress?
I have my categories pages set to noindex, follow. I deactivated the author and date based archives, and all the /page/2 /page/3 are noindex. Is this the right approach? I had thought about adding some text to the topic of each category page and then changing them to index. I'm using showing recent post excerpts on the homepage. Another other suggestions? I think two of my sites are in panda for no good reason. It seems like non-wordpress blogs in my industry do better than comparable wordpress sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateV0 -
Subdomains for niche related keywords
I wanted to know how efficient using a subdomain is, taking in consideration all the updates Google has made lately. I am looking to use a subdomain for a well branded website for a niche specific part of their website. The subdomain will end-up having more than 100 pages. I'd like to see in what cases do you guys recommend using a subdomain? How to get the same benefit out of a subdomain as i am getting from the actual main domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CMTM0