Do exact keyword matches exclude "in", "based" etc?
-
I am trying to build a landing page for the search term "web design london" and I have included this search term as well as some variations such as "web design in london", "web design based in london" as the content doesn't really read well if I don't put in a connector word (I can't remember what the term for the use of "in" etc is).
However I am using the Moz On-Page Grader to make sure I'm dotting every i and crossing every t, but it doesn't seem to pick up on the search term when "in" or "based" is used. Now is this a limitation of the On-Page Grader or should I expect Google and other search engines to not pick up on the search term when it contains these sorts of words?
-
The Yoast SEO plugin does the same thing. Both it and Moz are intended as a guide only. You have to overlay it with your best judgement.
-
This makes sense. The content is written in a way that makes it easy for the user to read, I think my concern was whether either Google or Moz itself were smart enough to see that. I guess this is something that will improve in the On-Page Grader over time. Thank you!
-
A similar question was asked a while ago and here's what Moz Staffer Keri Morgret had to say.
"Here's some information from Google itself:
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
Words that are commonly used, like 'the,' 'a,' and 'for,' are usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even exceptions to this exception. The search
- [ the who ] likely refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably refers to the World Health Organization -- Google will not ignore the word 'the' in the first query."
So you can see that there is no definitive list of "stop words"; the answer is contextual. Try your proposed title tag with and without the "stop word". If it has the same meaning both ways, you can safely omit it. If you think it will invoke a better response from viewers or clarifies some subtle distinction and you can fit it in within the known pixel constraints, then consider adding it.
-
There are two schools of thought on this.
One school is as you have adopted above, simply frame your title to the customer. I do not 100% agree as I think there are competitive tensions between "customer v SEO" on various aspects of a site build. One is title - So personally I would delete words "in" as the 512 pixels in your title is valuable space and integral in informing search engines what your site does, so the search engines can match it to searchers intent. The "in" does not add anything, it is superfluous. I personally prefer "web design london" as it is succinct and straight to the point. I already know you are based in London - so no need to tell me, web design london does that.
Your call, hope that assists.
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
-
Keyword Count Incorrect In On Page Grader
Hi, I have found that on one site I am working on seems to have issues when i run it through the on page grader. The problem is that it is saying I am showing the main keyword 24 times in the body, but actually it is 12 times. Could there be a problem on the website that is showing something I cant see, or is this a known issue. Thanks
Moz Bar | | DaleZon0 -
Label existing keywords
I have keywords that were added without a label that I would now like to associate with an existing label. I don't want to lose my tracking data by deleting them and re-adding. Is there a way to easily label them with an existing label?
Moz Bar | | AppliedMarketingScience2 -
Create a report with keyword, label, difficulty, global search volume, and ranking?
Is it possible to create a report with containing keyword, label, difficulty, global search volume, and ranking? Currently in order to get the data, it seems like I need to manage two lists, the keyword list we are tracking and the keyword list in the Difficulty tool then somehow manually combine the data. Is there an easier way?
Moz Bar | | promfgsystems2 -
Bulk keyword upload feature for Rank Tracker?
Is there a quick way to bulk upload a bunch of keywords to Rank Tracker without having to add one at a time? Also, once I get them in there, will they be there each day? Thanks!
Moz Bar | | Ibro0 -
On-page Grader and Cyrillic keywords
Hi all, I'm trying out the On-page grader and i see "funny" output when it comes to cyrillic keywords. I can see 73 occurrences in the title, 108 in the meta description tag, 34 in the H1 tag, etc. etc... Of course, these are not correct and i've manually checked. I've tested a few other pages in Bulgarian, using Cyrillic kewords... same story 😞 Please, let me know if there's something i'm missing, as this is crucial for my work. Thanks in advance.
Moz Bar | | jose_ugs0 -
Moz keywords tool obsolete?
It looks like Google is going to encrypt all user searches, rendering entire sections of SEO tools useless like portions of Moz. What's Moz's reaction to something like this? http://blog.hubspot.com/google-encrypting-all-searches-nj
Moz Bar | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Keyword Difficulty search volumes - frequency?
Hi, first post on the Moz Q&A forum. The Keyword Difficulty tool reports "Bing Search Volume (Exact Match)" for Local and Global, but nowhere can I see what frequency these numbers are for. Does this mean daily, weekly or monthly? I cannot find that anywhere in the moz pro documentation Thanks in advance for your help with this. Peter
Moz Bar | | crackingmedia0