We were speaking to an SEOer about how Google looks at words that make up a keyword phrase. This SEOer told us that support for Website Auditor said that Website Auditor will count two words that are part of phrase as though they were next to each other, so long as they were within 150 characters. The Website Auditor support claimed that this is how Google counts it, so, we test that out.
Test Downloads
Transcription Below
I was talking to somebody and they were comparing some tools that count exact keywords, particularly like a keyword phrase like red and bicycle, as a two-word phrase and they were looking at tools. I noticed in Website Auditor, which was a really great tool and I use it a lot, the exact match word count was super high – much higher that they could see red and bicycle sitting next to each other.
They got on with Website Auditor support and the support said that if those two words – red and bicycle – are within 150 characters within each other, they can count that as an exact match keyword. They said they do that because that is how Google does it. I actually looked for some documentation, do they write about this somewhere, and they don’t.
It could be a rouge support person but it seems like it is actually how they do count though because the person that went through matched up the numbers and they looked about right. So, it appears that is how their tool is doing it, they are very smart people, they do that for a reason, so let’s take a look at that.
What I did in this test was I indexed pages with one fake keyword, so they are there and then I added a second keyword. For the test page, I added it next to it – so red and bicycle are sitting next to each other. For the other pages, the controls, I put approximately a hundred characters in between.
So, within that 150 but there is a big gap in between these two words, red and bicycle have several words in between. Just for perspectives sake, this is how far it gets, it is in the next line. It is all the way down. A hundred characters is a lot more than you think. I was thinking of like a word or two, but look at that, that is like ten or fifteen words in between and so they are going to count that as the same word.
So, what I am saying here is that, if these are counted as the same thing by Google, then we should not see any movement in here. These pages should basically remain the same because we haven’t added any phrases. When I do that two-word phrase search together, we shouldn’t see anything. That did not happen at all. The two-word phrase keyword jumped right to the top from the number three spot and then running it in the inverse, without it, it dropped right to the bottom. This doesn’t sound right to me at all. It did sound right then, it doesn’t sound right now.
It is an interesting idea of how to count the keyword phrase that you are going after. Clearly, Website Auditor made this decision from whatever reason. We do know though from a test by Ryan, maybe six months ago or so, that you can actually potentially beat a page with just matches and matches would be red and bicycle on its own.
You could potentially get them enough on a page to beat a phrase if that phrase is not said as many times as the test page. That is one thing and maybe that is what Website Auditor was going for or maybe that is why they made the decision that they made is because they know that. But it seems to me that your exact phrase is a different thing.
You should be conscious of putting it together and putting it together is a more powerful signal than just splitting the words apart or across a page. I would keep that in mind. I wouldn’t separate my keyword phrase intentionally. Let it happen naturally and if you like a tool like Cora for example, you can see your matches and you can see how you could use your matches without stuffing your exact keyword phrase everywhere. But putting in the keyword phrase next to each other is clearly the strongest.
Best SEO Company is Sacramento vs Best SEO Company Sacramento?
What I found, and this is just in looking at serps, when you want to make that decision, do the search both ways in the serps and see if the results change. If they don’t Google is treating them the same term. I think it is the most practical way to go about it. They are relatively the same and basically the same word.
At that point, what I do to make the decision on which way I want to optimize is I see which way they have optimized in the serps. Sometimes you would see that they have optimized the “in” Dallas, sometimes they are not – Best Farmer Dallas. I go that way.
Do the search both ways, get relatively the same sites, maybe one or two shifts but they are basically the core, and from there, I will see which way they are optimizing. The quick look is by looking at their meta title and their h1 because those are two of the strongest parts and if they use the in then use the in, if they haven’t, then don’t.