Ranking 1st for a keyword - but when 's' is added to the end we are ranking on the second page
-
Hi everyone - hope you are well.
I can't get my head around why we are ranking 1st for a specific keyword, but then when 's' is added to the end of the keyword - we are ranking on the second page.
What could be the cause of this? I thought that Google would class both of the keywords the same, in this case, let's say the keyword was 'button'. We would be ranking 1st for 'button', but 'buttons' we are ranking on the second page.
Any ideas? - I appreciate every comment.
-
Hi Brett,
I've the same situation with a client. We focused on the singular and ranked higher with the plural.
Of course the optimization were done for the singular keyword.The reasons we found:
- CTR in serps,
- Search volume, lower in this case
- Several links with the plural keyword.
hope it helps.
-
Hi Brett,
Your confusion is understandable. "Button" and "buttons," for example, are so closely related that it seems strange that Google would identify those as two separate keywords. However, it is important to remember that Google search results aren't always based on a semantic understanding of the search, and Google can't always assume that a word modified with an s on the end always means the same thing as a word without an s on the end. Take the words "cosmetic" and "cosmetics," for example. So it has to treat plural and singular versions of a word as two separate keywords that rank differently based on competition for those keywords.
Here is an article that offers an opinion on how you should handle trying to rank for both the singular and plural form of a word - you may find it useful: http://www.business2community.com/seo/singular-plural-keywords-always-seo-0974028#DJv4kwHCfdUFBPG2.97
Hope this helped!
-
Hi Tymen,
I am using both at the moment and we are primarily focusing on the pural - yet we still rank highly without the 's'.
It's a pain, not to sure why this is happening!
Brett
-
Hi!
I have familiair situations. Do you use both in the content? I focus mailny on the plural since I hope people want to buy more but also the single word I use in the content. It helps me to at least get them both in top 5. In my internal linking I vary in the single and plural links to the page/product. So most important tp I can give you is to use both in the content.
Regards,
Tymen
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
-
ECommerce Replatforming URL's
We are in the process of re-platforming our eCommerce site to Magento 2. For the most part, the majority of site content will remain the same. Unfortunately on our current platform, we have been inconsistent with the use of .html as a URL suffix. As a result, our category and product pages are half and half - /stainless-steel-hardware.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BoatOutfitters
&
/stainless-steel-hardware We are considering taking the opportunity to clean up and standardize our URLs. (Drop the .html from all URLs on the new site and 301 redirect these to the same URL without the .html) Our concern is that many of the .html pages are good categories with strong page rank and I've read many articles about page rank loss from 301 redirects. We are debating internally if it really makes sense to take an SEO hit for something is seemingly small as dropping the .html from the URL. It would be a no-brainer if we were taking the opportunity to change to more SEO friendly natural language URLs. However currently our URL's appear acceptable with the exception of the inconsistent suffix. Thanks in advance for any insight on how you would approach this!2 -
Adding a secondary keyword or other keyword variation to the title tag affect ranking for primary keyword?
Hi Moz Community, According to Google Search Console, the main keyword for our website is undergoing a low click through rate, even though we have good ranking for that keyword (top 3). Currently, our homepage's title tag is "Brand Name: Primary Keyword". I am thinking about adding a secondary keyword or other keyword variation to differentiate our company from others in order to possibly increase the click through rate. Will this affect the current ranking for the primary keyword? Also, is the clickthrough data in Google Search Console accurate? Thank you! Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raymondlii0 -
My website is ranking well on most of keywords. How do I find more keywords in order to drive more traffic to my website?
I have a website which is ranking well on some good keywords ie generic and long tail. It is also ranking for some really competitive keywords. and now getting constant traffic. I want to increase organic traffic to my website. What are the best possible ways to do this? How to research more keywords and how to identify that they will really work? Please help, I am confused.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rishi.ast0 -
Google now automatically adding (NAME).UK.COM to the end of each page title
We're on a .uk.com subdomain (scientifica.uk.com). Now, at the end of each page title, Google is automatically adding 'Scientifica - UK.COM'. So a lot of our results now appear as [Page title] - Scientifica - UK.COM It looks a bit a mess and I'm worried about our CTR. Can anyone shed some light on this or know how to stop it? Thank you WbCO0BM
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesPearce0 -
Pages ending in .ad extension?
My company recently updated it's layout for thumbnails and property pages. Previously they displayed as /Property/123456-123%20MAIN%20Street-SPRINGFIELD-PA-98765 I know that was pretty bad URL structure so I was glad it was being changed, but now property pages are simply displaying as /6294888.ad What the heck is the .ad extension?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BD690 -
Refocusing a site's conent
Here's a question I was asked recently, and I can really see going either way, but want to double check my preference. The site has been around for years and over that time expanded it's content to a variety of areas that are not really core to it's mission, income or themed content. These jettisonable other areas have a fair amount of built up authority but don't really contribute anything to the site's bottom line. The site is considering what to do with these off-theme pages and the two options seem to be: Leave them in place, but make them hard to find for users, thus preserving their authority as an inlink to other core pages. or... Just move on and 301 the pages to whatever is half-way relevant. The 301 the pages camp seems to believe that making the site's existing/remaining content focused on three or four narrower areas will have benefits for what Google sees the site as being about. So, instead of being about 12 different things that aren't too related to each other, the site will be about 3 or 4 things that are kinda related to eachother. Personally, I'm not eager to let go of old pages because they do produce some traffic and have some authority value to help the core pages via in-context and navigation links. On the other hand, maybe focusing more would have benefits search benefits. What do think? Best... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Adding another keyword phrase to home page.
I finally reached the #1 ranking for my websites main keyword phrase. There are two more equally good keyword phrases that have my main two keywords plus one additional page. Can I shoot for both of those or should I limit it to just adding one more keyword phrase for a max of two? For Example. I rank #1 for Horse Buggies (our domain is the main two keywords) (Example) The other two equally good phrases with a little more traffic are Horse Large Buggies (I rank #29)and Horse Giant Buggies. (#46) What is the best way to start ranking for those terms....without saturating or cannabolizing my current terms? We are about to change the URL's on some of our pages...so maybe I could add Large and Giant to the URL. Any suggestions? I sure would like to capture the other two keyword phrases. #1 URL additions? ( I think this would just rank me higher for the new pages) #2 Would getting new links with those two new keyword phrases in the alt text help or is that black hat? #3 Adding more of those keyword phrases to my home page? Thank you, Boo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Key page of site not ranking at all
Our site has the largest selection of dog clothes on the Internet. We're been (every so slowly) creeping up in the rankings for the "dog clothes" term, but for some reason only rank for our home page. Even though the home page (and every page on the domain) has links pointing to our specific Dog Clothes page, that page doesn't even rank anywhere when searching Google with "dog clothes site:baxterboo.com". http://www.google.com/webhp?source=hp&q=dog+clothes+site:baxterboo.com&#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&source=hp&q=dog+clothes+site:baxterboo.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=dog+clothes+site:baxterboo.com&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=f4efcaa1b8c328f Pages 2+ of product results from that page rank, but not the base page. It's not excluded in robots.txt, All on site links to that page use the same URL. That page is loaded with more text that includes the keywords. I don't believe there's duplicated content. What am I missing? Has the page somehow been penalized?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBPets0