Are keywords in plural form better?

[dougadam]

Example: If you have a website with the keyword car. Would not cars be better? Would you receive traffic from the keyword car and cars? Conversely, if you just had the keyword car. You not receive traffic from the keyword cars. Would you?

[coder]

This depends on your keywords. Obviously some keywords are better as singular, some plural.

Also depends on search engines. Google has a different set of rules then yahoo. Yahoo seems to be more forgiving when it comes to the 2. Where google does what google does.

Our customers search for fireworks and in yahoo we are #1 for singular and plural. In google for plural #1, singular listed way down in the serps.

So find out what your customers are searching and use that as your keywords.

[Sergio Simarro]

Hi!

That's what I have many times study. But currently I think the answer is not, and I will tell you why.

General searches are becoming local searches (I think for many markets they have always been local), so you are not targeting for keywords, but key phrases. And you would be losing relevance.

Example:
- You want to rent a car in Florida
- You search for: rent a car florida (you usually don´t search for rent a cars florida)
- Some Web Sites optimize their keywords for: rent a car florida
- Other Web Sites optimize their keywords for: rent a car florida

- The first ones, will have more relevancy for "rent a car florida" because that's the key phrase that is not compare (not word by word).

So my conclusion is: although is could seem that optimizing for plural keywords would be better, in my opinion current search for key phrases must fit as more as possible.

Anyway, this is my opinion and I would like to know more postings about this idea

[brian.mark]

We try to optimize different pages on our site for the singular and plural of most of our products. While many people search for "cordless drills", quite a few also search for "cordless drill".

According to wordtracker:

Keyword Count
cordless drills 375
cordless drill 282

Stemming on Google tends to rank lower than exact matches, so optimizing for one or the other means you'll show up lower on the phrase you don't choose to optimize for. They have the "Exact first, close second" approach down well.

If you have the capability, optimize both ways. Otherwise, you're going to suffer on one or the other in some engines.

Brian.

[Sergio Simarro]

Yes Brian.
That's what I wanted to say: you have to optimize for your most searched keyphrase, but you cannot forget another lower searches, because they also convert to sales.

Measure it and try to improve it.
Kind regards.

[greeneagle]

I have recently seen a GOOGLE trend toward diminishing that difference.

Ken

[brian.mark]

Trends don't make a rule. We rank #1 and 2 for tool parts and #40 for tool part. It was much wider not all that long ago (1 and 2 vs 130's), but regardless it still can make a big difference.

I'd like to see it close in closer at some point. That would sure make our jobs a whole lot easier.

Brian.

[DMC_34]

I have recently seen a GOOGLE trend toward diminishing that difference.

Ken

I would have to agree. We do not optimize for Christmas card just Christmas cards yet we are #3 on Google for both. Before stemming we were not ranked well at all for the singular version.

MSN on the hand hasnt a clue when it comes to stemming.

DMC

[DMC_34]

Trends don't make a rule. We rank #1 and 2 for tool parts and #40 for tool part. It was much wider not all that long ago (1 and 2 vs 130's), but regardless it still can make a big difference.

I'd like to see it close in closer at some point. That would sure make our jobs a whole lot easier.

Brian.

Maybe you should try adding "tool part" higher in the index page. Keyword density isnt a factor in Google anymore anyways.

DMC

[brian.mark]

Maybe you should try adding "tool part" higher in the index page. Keyword density isnt a factor in Google anymore anyways.

DMC

That was just an example. It isn't a useful term for us, so I really don't care where we rank for that one (actually, either one - it doesn't convert to sales very well).

Keywork density may not make any difference in Google, but then again there are other engines to consider if you're really doing search marketing.

Brian.

[DMC_34]

Maybe you should try adding "tool part" higher in the index page. Keyword density isnt a factor in Google anymore anyways.

DMC

That was just an example. It isn't a useful term for us, so I really don't care where we rank for that one (actually, either one - it doesn't convert to sales very well).

Keywork density may not make any difference in Google, but then again there are other engines to consider if you're really doing search marketing.

Brian.

True but our philosphy may be different. Traffic is branding whether they convert or not. As time goes on branding is what has been the difference maker. Our conversion rate is very high for "Business Christmas cards" but I believe most start out as searches for "Christmas cards" first then unhappy with the results search for either Business Christmas cards or Christmas cards business. The point being though a broader keyword will never convert as well as a more specific one. Branding is the key result.

As for keyword density, our pages on cardsdirect have a very high keyword density, exptremely high, actually borderline spammy, but we hold the #1 & #2 on all 3 major SE's.

DMC

[brian.mark]

We do have some for branding. That's why I don't care if we're #1 for tool parts or not, but I prefer when it's there.

What really works is brand parts. dewalt parts, makita parts, senco parts, milwaukee parts, etc. Those convert well and let us brand at the same time. Then, when people search for something like makita cordless drill parts, we're familiar. Tool parts is just so vague that it's almost worthless. Sort of like someone saying cards and hitting your site... did they want playing cards, greeting cards, christmas cards, trading cards... you just don't know.

I'll continue to get that one up top, but the ones I'm really concerned with are much more specific.

Brian.

[DMC_34]

We do have some for branding. That's why I don't care if we're #1 for tool parts or not, but I prefer when it's there.

What really works is brand parts. dewalt parts, makita parts, senco parts, milwaukee parts, etc. Those convert well and let us brand at the same time. Then, when people search for something like makita cordless drill parts, we're familiar. Tool parts is just so vague that it's almost worthless. Sort of like someone saying cards and hitting your site... did they want playing cards, greeting cards, christmas cards, trading cards... you just don't know.

I'll continue to get that one up top, but the ones I'm really concerned with are much more specific.

Brian.

In our business we dont have brands, we are the brand actually. I agree though, in our business its "greeting cards" and they were looking for "free e-greetings". Makes sense.

DMC

[jawn_tech]

Since the major SE's seem to show a distiction, I think it all boils down to researching which keywords/phrases are more popular in the singular or plural version, which is on a case by case basis. Using keyword popularity tools you just might see certain phrases using cats instead of cat, or vice-versa. There is no one standard that can say whether or not keywords should be plural or not. It depends totally upon the keyword/phrase that pertains to your site.

I concur, don't forget secondary versions as well. Still maintain the effort to try to capture those visitors who are using other versions and other words.

[xmx]

A simple suggestion could be to start optimizing your site for the less competitive version of your keywords, this could help get well ranked faster.
Then you can try optimizing the more competitive version of the keywords on a different section of the site as an example.

[zycon5000]

Has this changed for 2009? From what I've read in the past, excluding this forum, is that you should concentrate on the plural version of a keyword or keyword phrase as Google and others will grab the singular version from it.

It appears this isn't the case anymore, though. Searching G for a singular or plural version of a word does show different results and a different number of results. The keyword tool shows a significant difference in many cases, as well.

An example on our website is our belt conveyor manufacturers (http://www.zycon.com/Products/Belt-Conveyors.html) page. When I search for "belt conveyors" and "belt conveyor" (without the quotes) in Google, the results and our positions are indeed different. The KW tool shows 135,000 searches for belt conveyor and only 14,800 for belt conveyors.

This conveyors page and our other product pages have the plural version in the URL and usually in the title and meta desc as well. Is simply changing the title (and meta tags) beneficial enough, or should we change the URL from Belt-Conveyors.html to Belt-Conveyor.html too?

[innominds]

Instead of purely depending upon the keyword, I would also use keyword plurals, prefixes, and suffixes, other synonyms of keywords etc. This would be more realistic and looks natural even for the search engines.

[jeansmith]

Yes i use keyword also in plural form..



<in your signature only please>

[zycon5000]

Yes, but I was referring to having the singular term in the URL, as the first keyword closest to the beginning of the title tag and meta tags, etc, and whether or not it's better than concentrating on the plural first, singular second.

[Julie11]

I use Goolge Analytics Keyword Tool to see which is most frequently searched for - sometimes the results are the opposite of what I would have guessed. I make that (plural or singular) my primary keyword and then pick up on the other as a secondary keyword for same page or as a major keyword for less important page.

[zycon5000]

i dont think so both singular & plural form are equal the way it is searched by google it is equal.

Not sure if that's true. The results are sometimes drastically different depending on the singular vs plural term. I used to think Google treated them the same, and for years, I believe that was indeed the case. In 2009-10, I think things have changed which is why the question arose in the first place. G is always making things harder, lol.