Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Does an Apostrophe affect searches?

    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.

    Does an Apostrophe affect searches?

    Technical SEO
    3
    4
    8236
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • SushiUK
      SushiUK last edited by

      Does Google differentiate between keyphrase structures such as Mens Sunglasses & Men**'**s Sunglasses? I.e. does the inclusion/exclusion of an apostrophe make any difference when optimising your main keyword/phrase for a page?

      Keyword explorer appears to give different results..... I.e. no data for Men's Sunglasses, but data appears for Mens sunglasses. So if I optimise my page to include the apostrophe, will it screw the potential success for that page?

      Thanks 🙂

      Bob

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • BlueCorona
        BlueCorona last edited by

        Hi there!

        Search engines have gotten smarter in the past few years and should be able to determine that the keyword (with AND without an apostrophe) means the same thing. I wouldn't worry about the keywords you're tracking and the keywords you're using within your content if the only difference is the apostrophe usage.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • SushiUK
          SushiUK last edited by

          Thank you Rob, that really helps!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • RobCairns
            RobCairns last edited by

            Hi Bob,

            Search engines are pretty good about grammar and punctuation. As a general rule, rankings aren't impacted by your use (or lack thereof) of punctuation in your titles, content, etc.

            The only time punctuation in your content might make a difference is if the punctuation alters the meaning of the sentence - an example I like to use involves a title of an article on Rachel Ray which reads, "Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog" which, with proper grammar, would read, "Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family and her dog". Obviously, these 2 sentences mean completely different things, and Google will pick up on that based on your content.

            The reason keyword explorer is kicking back no data for the search term including the apostrophe is likely because no one uses the apostrophe when conducting their search. As an example, if I am looking for a plumber in New York City, I'm going to search "plumber new york city" or "plumber nyc" rather than "I am looking for a plumber in New York City, New York".

            To answer your question directly:

            No, using apostrophes in your content will in no way impede your ability to rank for your keyword in the example you have given. You have given contextual information which Google will interpret and rank your pages accordingly.

            Hope this helps to explain what's going on. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

            Cheers,

            Rob

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • tif-swedensky

              Unsolved Google Search Console Still Reporting Errors After Fixes

              google search console sitemaps 400 errors

              Hello, I'm working on a website that was too bloated with content. We deleted many pages and set up redirects to newer pages. We also resolved an unreasonable amount of 400 errors on the site. I also removed several ancient sitemaps that listed content deleted years ago that Google was crawling. According to Moz and Screaming Frog, these errors have been resolved. We've submitted the fixes for validation in GSC, but the validation repeatedly fails. What could be going on here? How can we resolve these error in GSC.

              Technical SEO | | tif-swedensky
              0
            • Mike555

              Google image search filter tabs and how to rank on them

              I have noticed Google image search has included suggestion tabs (e.g,. design, nature... when searching background) on the top of the image search.
              Are there specific meta tags I can add into my images so that my images will show up on each tab?
              Do those filters just show content based on image keywords or something else? IRme7gQ

              Technical SEO | | Mike555
              0
            • samgold

              Can an external firewall affect rankings?

              For security reasons we are now routing traffic through an external firewall cum CDN. Our server and domain IPs remain the same, but any request is routed through an external IP, which then forwards the traffic. Would our rankings be affected because of IP changes? Thanks Sam

              Technical SEO | | samgold
              0
            • linkjuiced

              Googlebot and other spiders are searching for odd links in our website trying to understand why, and what to do about it.

              I recently began work on an existing Wordpress website that was revamped about 3 months ago. https://thedoctorwithin.com. I'm a bit new to Wordpress, so I thought I should reach out to some of the experts in the community.Checking ‘Not found’ Crawl Errors in Google Search Console, I notice many irrelevant links that are not present in the website, nor the database, as near as I can tell. When checking the source of these irrelevant links, I notice they’re all generated from various pages in the site, as well as non-existing pages, allegedly in the site, even though these pages have never existed. For instance: https://thedoctorwithin.com/category/seminars/newsletters/page/7/newsletters/page/3/feedback-and-testimonials/        allegedly linked from: https://thedoctorwithin.com/category/seminars/newsletters/page/7/newsletters/page/3/ (doesn’t exist) In other cases, these goofy URLs are even linked from the sitemap. BTW - all the URLs in the sitemap are valid URLs. Currently, the site has a flat structure. Nearly all the content is merely URL/content/ without further breakdown (or subdirectories). Previous site versions had a more varied page organization, but what I'm seeing doesn't seem to reflect the current page organization, nor the previous page organization. Had a similar issue, due to use of Divi's search feature. Ended up with some pretty deep non-existent links branching off of /search/, such as: https://thedoctorwithin.com/search/newsletters/page/2/feedback-and-testimonials/feedback-and-testimonials/online-continuing-education/consultations/  allegedly linked from: https://thedoctorwithin.com/search/newsletters/page/2/feedback-and-testimonials/feedback-and-testimonials/online-continuing-education/ (doesn't exist). I blocked the /search/ branches via robots.txt. No real loss, since neither /search/ nor any of its subdirectories are valid. There are numerous pre-existing categories and tags on the site. The categories and tags aren't used as pages. I suspect Google, (and other engines,) might be creating arbitrary paths from these. Looking through the site’s 404 errors, I’m seeing the same behavior from Bing, Moz and other spiders, as well. I suppose I could use Search Console to remove URL/category/ and URL/tag/. I suppose I could do the same, in regards to other legitimate spiders / search engines. Perhaps it would be better to use Mod Rewrite to lead spiders to pages that actually do exist. Looking forward to suggestions about best way to deal with these errant searches. Also curious to learn about why these are occurring. Thank you.

              Technical SEO | | linkjuiced
              0
            • McCaldin

              Should i Disavow links from Secret Search Engine Labs

              Hi, I'm doing a link audit.  My sites' keyword rankings and organic traffic have been sent to the Phantom Zone since the last Penguin Update. I've got 70+ and counting follow backlinks to my main domain and one of the my subdomains from http://www.secretsearchenginelabs.com/; should i disavow them? There's a load of links to many recognisable sites in there and my instinct's all out of whack with this decision. I think that these links were all manually added by a link building company on our behalf. It does look manipulated to me but i'd like a second opinion before I dump all of those links. Thanks Thanks

              Technical SEO | | McCaldin
              0
            • frnprz

              Links under Meta Description when performing a search

              Doing research for clients, I have came across seeing sites displaying hyperlinks underneath their own meta description. keywords that I have googled that result with hyperlinks displaying under meta descriptions: Google'd: iacquire (brand) bmw wheels (Beyern Wheels, position 1) aftermarket bmw wheels (MMR Wheels, position 2) These companys have hyperlinks underneath their descriptions. Anyone have any ideas why this happens or how it happens?

              Technical SEO | | frnprz
              0
            • idiHost

              How is a dash or "-" handled by Google search?

              I am targeting the keyword AK-47 and it the  variants in search (AK47, AK-47, AK 47) .  How should I handle on page SEO?  Right now I have AK47 and AK-47 incorporated. So my questions is really do I need to account for the space or is Google handling a dash as a space? At a quick glance of the top 10 it seems the dash is handled as a space, but I just wanted to get a conformation from people much smarter then I at seomoz. Thanks, Jason

              Technical SEO | | idiHost
              0
            • webmasterles

              Site disappearing from search for a certain keyword

              I was wondering if someone has encountered the same problem as me. I was doing some changes on the frontpage of one of my clients' website, especially some redirections, and my site has disappeared from Google for the main keyword on the page. So, if I look for my page on Google, instead of seeing my page first, I no longer see my page, at all. All I've done was a 301 redirection from index.html to the domain name. Now, I changed everything back to how it was before. More precisely, I've done that 2 weeks ago. But, no change in Google. I checked Bing and Yahoo, my site appears first when I search for that specific keyword. Any ideas how long will it take for Google to see that I am not doing anything wrong with redirections? Or any idea at all?

              Technical SEO | | webmasterles
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.