Are apostrophes relevant in keyword search?

[Sosthenes]

Hi everyone.
Just getting into SEO to enable me to promote my site(s).

Are the keywords King's and Kings treated the same by search engines?

ie if a user enters King's as a search term, will the SE results also include Kings (without the apostrophe)?

If a user omits the apostrophe, and types in Kings, will the search engine return the keyword King's, as well as Kings ?

I need to know this as I live in King's Lynn, and not all users type in the apostrophe.

Thanks - Sosthenes

[David Wallace]

Are the keywords King's and Kings treated the same by search engines?
I just tested this on Google and Teoma and you do get a different set of results for each variation so I would say, yes they do treat each word different.

Now as to whether a search for Kings will return the keyword King's, as well as Kings I'm not sure but on the first set of results on Google, a search for "King's" returned both variations of the words whereas a search for "Kings" only returned the variation without the apostrophe.

You might want to conduct some more related searches on your own but I would say that if you want to target a word with an apostrophe, be sure it is represented on your site.

[bwelford]

Welcome to the Forums, Sosthenes. I think you live in a tough location in search engine terms. :)

Well I just did a Google search for - King's - and compared it with a search for - King s - to check out what my guess was.

My theory was that the apostrophe would be considered as a stop character as are all other punctuation marks and spaces. Stop characters are not considered in the search algorithm. So the two searches should be identical with both looking for <king><stop character><s>. Well the first entry is the same for both searches but there are some differences in the listings.

So I'm now a bit confused. Perhaps stop characters may be considered in the search algorithm.

[rustybrick]

Just some data to make this decision easier for you.

Kings is search on 627.0/day according to wordtracker. Overture, didn't have any value for the plural version of kings.

King 1,487.0/day wordtracker, 2,788.5/day overture.

Kings Lynn 23.0/day according to wordtracker and 56.7/day for overture. No results are stored for the apostrophe.

[Sosthenes]

Hi everyone.

Thanks for your comments and replies.

I have done some Google searches as well.

It appears that using the apostrophe as in King's will return King's and King in the search results.

It also appears that using the keyword Kings without the apostrophe will only return Kings and not always King or King's.

The results seem to be a bit hit and miss!

I shall include King, Kings and King's as Meta keywords.

I may try and use King's in the page title and see if that covers all variations.

Thanks again

Sosthenes.

[bwelford]

Unfortunately, Sosthenes, as far as anyone knows the meta tag for "keywords" is not considered at all by the major search engines. I think most of us continue to put them in just in case it may matter some day. However I don't think you will solve the problem that way.

I believe the only solution is to incorporate all three, king, king's and kings somewhere on your website. Any one of them can be optimized in a specific web page and that's probably the way to go.

[America Webmaster]

Are the keywords King's and Kings treated the same by search engines?

Yes, Google does take apostrophe's into consideration. But there is a serious problem with Google and apostrophes. On my Website, americamagazine.org I use the ASCII code:
’ or right single quotation mark
to print an apostrophe with a curl because it looks better, as in the book title: The Vatican’s Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler.

The ASCII code in the 3rd line is: apersand#8217;

Google does not treat this the same as a simple apostrophe that would be typed into its search engine. As a result, it ignores all apostrophe's which curl. If you copy and paste into Google: book review The Vatican’s Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler
our site comes up first.
If you type into Google: book review The Vatican's Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler
we are nowhere in sight.

Try it, just copy and paste the above into Google.

[Dodger]

I believe the only solution is to incorporate all three, king, king's and kings somewhere on your website. Any one of them can be optimized in a specific web page and that's probably the way to go.

I have the same problem with one of my terms (Burt's Bees). If you do a search without the apostrophe ... you get the dreaded "Did you mean Burt's Bees?"

I think Google does consider it with certain nouns, pronouns, and proper names as a possessive form (as opposed to a plural). I have to run both in my content and it can be a little tricky at times for it is a two-word term basicly, and it can get a little crowded in the Title tag and repetitive.

I also run two sets of links to these pages, one set with the aprostrophe in the anchor text and one set without it. External links I will mix it up if I can, just like in my Titles.