Search Terms with Apostrophes
-
In doing keyword research I discovered that the Google Adwords Tools returns results with a space in search terms where an apostrophe should be.
For example: Searching for 'mens fashion' or 'men's fashion' will return keyword ideas like 'men s fashion trends', 'men s fashion styles'. Same thing happens if yous search for '50s fashion' or 'mens suits'.
Not only that but if you search for 'men s fashion' in the adwords tool you get 14,800 exact matches! Who would you use that term? And if you do search for it in Google, it will auto correct to 'men's fashion'.
If you know the answer to what a term like 'men s fashion' signifies, you can skip the rest of this post and answer my question (thanks!). If not, here's what I did to try and figure it out - but I'm stuck and I need your help.
-
First off, I did a search for all 3 terms: (mens fashion, men's fashion and men s fashion) in the adwords tool. The tool responded with different numbers for each, with 'men s fashion' far exceeding 'men's fashion'. See image 1
-
I did a search for each of the three terms in Google. The top 10 results for each were different. See image 2
-
Google reads 'men s fashion' as 'men's fashion'. I know that because:
- Google says 'showing result's for men's fashion' (obvious!)
- Google instant lists terms beginning with 'men's fashion...' See image 3
- Related searches are identical for those two but not for 'mens fashion'.
- But it's not completely the same since as I mentioned you get different results, and the number of results found are different as well.
So that brings me back to my question: When the tool says that 28 people search for [men's fashion] and 14,800 search for [men s fashion]. What on earth does it mean?
-
-
I think that one thing that probably causes a lot of confusion for most people is that the algorithm google uses to return search results is far more complex most likely than the algorithm they use in the Google Keyword Tool to return lists of keywords.
I've probably spent more than my share of time trying to wrap my head around this and it is the best theory i have come up with to date.
Also, i think that some of the ranking factors are significantly disproportionate in weight when comparing a regular search vs. a "phrase match" search.
-
Thanks. That was a really useful link.
I'm going to take that to mean that 'men s' is a stand in for 'men's' or 'men!s' or 'men!!!!!!!!!s'
I'm still not clear about how to apply that (as in how Google applies that) to organic search because they return (slightly) different results 'men s' and 'men's'. Also, why would the adwords tool show separate search volume for both terms if one's a stand in for the other?
-
Nice link Dan.
I support Dan's reply with the exception of when exact match is used. If you want to target a specific form of the phrase, exact match should give you only the form you submit.
-
Hi
Great question! Stumped me a little, but I found this article. Safe to say it seems as if google ignores the apostrophe (and other characters including hyphen etc) so in effect "men's fashion" and "men s fashion" is the same thing.
-Dan
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
-
Is 11k-30k search traffic too high for a small blog with low domain authority to compete for? Is competition all that matters?
Trying to decide on a keyword phrase for my next post. One of the two phrases I'm deciding between has 100x more traffic but the priority is wayyy higher and the competition is just one point higher (54 vs 53). I'm hesitant to write on a post that gets 11k-30k monthly volume however b/c it just seems like too much traffic for a small blog with a domain authority of only 18 to compete with. But if the competition is nearly the same and the priority is higher, should I go for it anyway? I generally go for things with lower traffic thinking I will be able to better compete. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | Omniafunction1 -
How can you perform a simulated search query from another location?
In order to review the search results for different locations (New York, London, Paris, Berlin, etc.) I have tried several ways to simulate a search query from different locations. None of the ways I tried gave me the correct results, mostly because Google recognized my location anyway. Tools such as Browserstack also didn't give me the results I hoped for. Any ideas how to generate search results from different locations?
Keyword Research | | Digital-DMG0 -
Google recommended dropdown in search bar
When Google drops down and tries to predict what you're searching for, are the terms in order of popularity from the top down?
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
How do I do SEO for a client who is starting a website that is in a niche with very little to none search traffic?
I am helping a client do On-page optimization and link building. His website is rather like thoughtcatalog.com, where it is a collection of random articles, opinions and anecdotes with no fixed genre. He also has a section devoted to artsy pictures of women. To make things worse, I am in a country (singapore) where the population is small, and the search traffic for his kind of content is minuscule. I have trouble finding out good keywords for him to target and I am considering not undergoing any serious keyword targeting at all (because it will detract from the style of his content). I did a little competitor research, and most of the websites in such a genre do not seem to do any keyword targeting at all! In such a case, how do i continue to help him with SEO? should I abandon keyword research? What should i do to help him earn traffic?
Keyword Research | | Marcus_Wong0 -
How should i see exact search volume of keywords
One of the seo company provide me the 2 keywords which have a 5400 exact searches per month but when i see this on google adword tool i didn't find 5400. it is only showing around 500-1000 exact searches, so how they are calculating these exact searches.. Here i am posting my screenshot please check - http://i46.tinypic.com/ezs7b.jpg
Keyword Research | | xplodeguru0 -
Search Engine Rankings Going Down
My google keywords has gone down from 100 per day to around 400 words in amonth. Did I get penalize for something. I remember making a local copy of my website on my serer to do a CMS upgrade. I didn't do the met=noindex until a week later. Now I have it passowrd protected. Do you think that could be the reason?
Keyword Research | | anoopbal0 -
Is there an ideal ratio of keyword difficulty to search volume?
I used the keyword research tool to pull data on potential keywords, the report returns a percentage to represent the competition and difficulty of a keyword. Is there an ideal ratio of percent difficulty to search volume
Keyword Research | | AdviceElle0 -
Is there a way to identify the phrases and pages involved in your URLS receiving search visits?
Our client seems to get 20 - 30 visits a month to pages which people arrived on via a search, without visiting home page and navigating there. Is there a way we can identify both the phrases the person used to arrive at the page, and the page itself? The graph is tantalizing, but without deeper insight into what the phrases and pages were, we can't focus on the phrases in question. And we'd like to do this, because the phrase may represent potential long tail phrases we could use. Thanks! Eric.
Keyword Research | | eric_gossamar0