metaphase
06-26-2005, 08:02 AM
When researching keywords in overture it always splits "website" into "web site".
When doing a search on google, using a search such as 'website marketing', will always bring different results to 'web site marketing', so its clear that google treats them differently
So my question is, if you need to optimise for a phrase with the word 'website' in it, which do you use, and when naming a page, should web-site be hyphenated.
metaphase
06-27-2005, 04:41 AM
It seems that Overture "correct you" from 'website' to 'web site', but if you put 'web site' into google it says "Did you mean: website"
Seems they are singing from a different hymn sheet??
Robert_Charlton
06-27-2005, 05:28 AM
So my question is, if you need to optimise for a phrase with the word 'website' in it, which do you use, and when naming a page, should web-site be hyphenated.
Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where I think you need to optimize for both. Four or five years back, I had several arguments with editors who wanted to change my preferred spelling, "website," to what they felt was the more accepted form, "Web site." Now, "Web" is less often capitalized, and I believe that "website" has overtaken "web site" in usage, depending on where you look.
Overture is useless for this kind of thing. Their Match Driver lumps singulars and plurals together, alphabetizes some multi-word searches, corrects misspellings, and creates its own standards. The classic example is that if you are targeting "toy cats," you will be lumped together with "cat toy."
By several measures on Google, "website" marketing is more commonly used than "web site" marketing. In the Google database, the "website" shows up in search results (as distinct from the number of searches) for the phrase, with the single word form associated with the returned pages roughly 1/3 more often to 100% more often than "web site," depending on where you put your quotation marks.
In the searches indicated in the AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool, here are the first four phrases returned in order when you enter both in the tool...
website marketing
web site marketing
marketing website
marketing web site
The Digital Point Tool, on the other hand, has WordTracker reporting more searches when "web site" is used...
web site marketing 528.0 /day
website marketing 329.0 /day
I'm skeptical of these numbers because of WT's small sample size, but they're not way out of line with the Overture numbers...
web site/website marketing 1,543.7 /day
...if you lump everything together and also consider that Overture generally skews upwards on popular searches.
In any event, the one and two word forms of website are running very close, and I'd go after both... if I were to go after the phrase at all. It shows 1,270,000 pages returning exact matches on Google, with no inside pages returned. That is more than a casually competitive phrase.
As for "web-site," the hyphen is equivalent to a space on all the engines, but I don't see anyone using it.
Marcia
06-27-2005, 05:28 AM
Overture lumps a lot of things together. For instance for certain phrases you can't get separate keywords for childrens or kids - they'll give them all in one.
metaphase
06-27-2005, 05:55 AM
great reply Robert, thanks alot