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.
SEO for compound word derivatives
-
Our company offers services for nonprofit organizations and we are finding that "non profit" and "nonprofit" are both used very frequently in search queries.
I suspect Google will treat the two variations similarly but am looking for something more concrete than my anecdotal experience.
- How does Google treat compound words that are commonly searched for as multiple words?
- Any suggestions on resources or tests to find a concrete answer for "nonprofit"?
-
Google makes semantic level query assumptions by default now- that's part of the function that allows google to suggest queries as you type. To address your question more directly, it depends on the individual terms and whether or not Google is giving complete, partial, or no equivalence to those terms. Non-profit and nonprofit are treated nearly the same in organic ranking- the top results are identical and the remaining results have more variance. You can experiment with this idea and you'll see some of this phenomena.
As for "concrete evidence"- you aren't going to get it. You should study the results of your individual terms' rankings because that's exactly what Google did to weight potential results... at least, it's a part of what they did. They have a vast army of "raters" that look into the relevance of query/results and assign a value to the search engine's success/lack of success. In the end, a load of data is collected in various categorically-structured groups of search terms. Are they using the data attached to these unique categories to craft a more relevant set of results? I don't know if they are, but I find it hard to believe they flush all of that expensive data down the drain just to use an umbrella algorithm to spit out all query results.
In the end, I think you'll find that worrying about the minor difference between the two is wasted time if you're looking for a concrete answer. To avoid the pitfall, stick to a single convention on each individual page, but vary the convention from page to page. When you search one or the other, watch how Google bolds the alternate terms in the list of results.. Compare the 1st page results of the two alternate terms.. are you seeing a pattern? With the other components of SEO on-track, it effectively won't matter at all.
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
-
Relevant but not-relevant keywords impact to SEO
Hello, I would like to know if the selection of individual keywords(that are not primary, secondary or tertiary) are important for SEO regardless of the relevancy to the page topic. I am wondering how much of a contribution a non-P1/P2/P3 can make in terms of SEO? For example it is a product page and I have built my content with P1,P2&P3 based only on the product and its properties itself. Do you think that a content gap for the page could be the production process of that product? So even if it is a product and its properties page, I can add 2 sentences about the production, so that I can drive more traffic by including these 2 informative sentences.? EXAMPLE:
Keyword Research | | Siir
So lets' say my topic is "hair types" (P1) and my subtopics are "Straight," "wavy," and "curly"(P2s) which I used as subtitles. But throughout the page, I am planning to add some relevant but not-directly-relevant keywords here and there since they have high metrics and volumes. For example a potential sentence I can add: "innovative hair products these days can offer amazing results for the desired hair types". It is not specifically about "hair types" but I am using the keyword "innovative hair products" (good metrics keyword) which may help for the traffic... Another potential not-so-direct sentence can be: "For all hair types, the hair damages are common: heat damage, chemical damage and mechanical damage". Would adding this extra sentence where I am not specifically talking about "hair types" (my topic) but "hair damages" and damage examples (off-topic high metric keywords) help me to drive traffic to my website? And how much of an impact would it be?0 -
Can you rank for copyrighted/trademarked words that became generic terms?
Hi, As everyone knows, lots of generic terms we use everyday (depends from one country to another obviously) are trademark terms and technically protected.
Keyword Research | | GhillC
Some examples here and there. So my question is ... are we free to rank (or try to at least!) for some of these keywords?
Some of these keywords vastly outranked their original generic terms and there is little to no value trying to get traffic from the latter. More specifically what about the keywords such as spin, spinning etc.? Thanks!
G0 -
Is KEI metric still commonly used by SEOs
I'd like to ask about the KEI, is it used by now? and is it really matters ? I guess # of results by Google is not a good metric to decide if the keyword is good or not? I'd really appreciate your inputs
Keyword Research | | Yaddly0 -
Keyword ranking by word order
If we have a keyword with 2 words like "SSL Audit". Will it rank in the same position the other way "Audit SSL" ?
Keyword Research | | Cistrust.com0 -
How to finalize the keywords for SEO?
Hi, I use the following method for keyword research: Create a long raw list of keywords. Use Google AdWords Keyword tool to find monthly searches. Find raw competition. Find direct competition (via allinanchor: search operator) Calculate KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) Calculate KOI (Keyword Opportunity Index) Is there any other (better) way to execute the keyword research? Or is finalizing/selecting the keywords only on the basis of monthly searches sufficient? In short, how to select the best keywords from a long list? Thanks & Regards
Keyword Research | | IM_Learner0 -
Filler words like "for" in keyword phrase
Hey, I wonder what the effect of filler words like "on" or "for" is when I try to rank for a certain phrase. Here is an example, lets say i try to rank for "best apps iphone" but the grammatically correct usage in the headline or text is "best apps for iphone". Is there any difference or should I use the exact keyword without "for"? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | SebastianKnopp0 -
E-Commerce SEO: Where to start with 4,000+ products?
Hey everyone! Complete SEO novice here. I work as the sole content person for an ecommere website with 4,000+ products. I've been trying for months to come up with some sort of SEO strategy, but I'm drowning. Completely drowning. I've been trying to use on-page analytics here at Moz for certain products that get a lot of margin for us. This worked great for awhile, but I haven't seen much progress. And then I jumped to link building and then I jumped to blogging and social, and now I don't know where to focus. I know each and every one of these is important, but I feel like I'm only giving 10% to each instead of 100%. I'm not getting anywhere. I'm just doggy paddling. I am in desperate need of a starting point. And yes, I've read Moz's beginner guide to SEO. I've researched for hours, but nobody seems to have a good starting point for someone trying to optimize a site with 4,000+ products. WHERE DO I START? Category pages? Low-hanging fruit? I feel like I've tried it all. I need some concrete ecommerce advice. Something that gives me a solid game plan as a one-woman show. Do I go brand by brand? Do I go with products with good margin? Do I stop focusing on individual products and go for category pages? I can't wrap my head around an SEO workflow. I'm really looking for ANY advice that can stop my head from spinning with ecommerce SEO. It's completely overwhelming! Thank you in advance!
Keyword Research | | ronyon0 -
No KWs to target and SEO value
Hello, I'm writing some on-going Q&A type blog posts and perform KW research for each post; however, there are a few where the question is not a popular topic at all and because of this, there are no KWs to target. I've checked a few sources. The question needs to be answered and i'm trying to get as much SEO value as i can. Just wondering how have you gone about this? Just answer the question and it will naturally target the long tail?
Keyword Research | | ShaneO0