site is the same as site's

[janeth]

This was brought up by ronniethedodger.

We wanted to see if Google saw site's as site.

So he wrote the text

"We Can Help You Suceed on-Line By Optimizing Your Web Site's Design And Content For Major Search Engines And Directories!"

The word we where looking at was "site's" we wanted to know how Google saw it.

Last night Ron emailed me and said if you go to

custom site design

Ranked #1 ( unless it moved )look in the cached and you will see that Google does see site's as site.

[janeth]

So this means to me that if you target the Plural you get the singular free.

Is this right or wrong?

[janeth]

It could work both ways if you go to


Optimizing Your Web Site's Design


#4


They count site as site's

So maybe it does not matter to Google either way

[ronniethedodger]

So this means to me that if you target the Plural you get the singular free.

Is this right or wrong?

Wrong. If you target the "possessive" form of the word it regards it as the "singular" also. Somehow the apostrophe is acting like a delimiter, just like commas would.

If you look at he cached version of the page in your case, when one of the words was "site", Google highlights the entire word "site's" (if you have highlighting turned on).

In the case of the "plural" form of the word (sites), it will be regarded as a different word.

[janeth]

So then the "possessive" ends the word there

that means we could do a search for 's and get a lot of sites that use that key word?

So the 's does not help anything?

[cbp]

So this means to me that if you target the Plural you get the singular free.

Is this right or wrong?

Yes. Google has been 'stemming' for a few months now.

See this example from Danny Sullivans site (scroll half way down page to question).

Also this blog entry.


CBP

[ronniethedodger]

Yes. Google has been 'stemming' for a few months now.

You know cbp...the more I look at it, the more it looks like this may be one of the key reasons for knocking those two-word keyphrases out of the results.

Think at it from this angle. People have been optimizing their pages for a certain phrase. Repeating it over and over. Sure...they may have it well represented, but you keep hearing the complaint "The number one result only mentions it once" or "heck only one of the words appears on that page".

Maybe stemming is allowing Google to interpret the page their way. By picking up on variations of words, possibly synonyms also.

They know the differences between nouns and verbs, and they can distinguish between the simpler tense forms of words (s, ed, ing). They also are getting pretty good at recognizing naturally written text.

A lot of the 2-word terms often contain everyday common words too. Gift Baskets, Web Design, Travel Agents, etc. I wonder how a word like "goose" would of been affected, or a not so common word like "flugalhorn".

In order for this to be simplistic enough to serve up results quickly, how would it be done? Who knows and who cares, because it is being done right now.

Look at the search for "promotional products" for instance. The number 3 result for Norwood has the word "promotions" highlighted (not the word "promotional"). Two more results below that, Branders, you see this again.

Perhaps the answer is that they are putting more weight on content that contain variations of the words themselves. These words would have to appear naturally and syntatically correct though.

[Mel]

I don't think that Googles stemming is clearly understood at the moment, but the easiest way to check how they are stemming a particular search phrase is to turn on the highlighting in the google toolbar, which will highlight all the words in the search term (and bold all that are relevant) and then do a search for the terms you are interested in.

If you search for website design versus website designs you will see that the search results are quite different and that the word design is not highlighted in the ...designs search but the word design is bolded, which to me indicates that it is regarded as relevant to the query.
If you search for website's design you will see that the word design is also bolded, so I would draw the opposite conclusion, that it is somehow considered as relevant to that search term.

[janeth]

I'm thinking it is what Ronnie started off saying.

That Google ignores the 's

[Mel]

Actually the search results are quite different for the search terms websites design and the terms website's design, although Google does appear to recognize the term website is related to both websites and website's.

If you want to rank well for one or the other you will have to use it in the normal way, but it might be a good idea to make sure you have all three in various places.