Hey all, Just wondering how google treats the letter "s" in the sense of making a word plural vs singular. I've always used say the term "schools" in my title, headers, keywords, and yet I only rank for "school". Any way to get Google to respect the fact that my terms have S's on them? Why would I rank for a term without an S that I don't even have anywhere on the page?
It's taken as a different keyword (therefore the different rankings), I suppose that either the keyword you are targeting in plural is more competitive or you aren't targeting it enough. Is good to work on both as they do help each other. Keep in mind that the keyword "schools" contains the keyword "school"...
For many/most keywords the differeneces in ranking are very slight for singular vs plural, but sometimes they can vary alot. You are on the right track using plural, I think your competitors are just a little stronger for plural than for singular, too.
I agree with both posters here. It is simply a matter of your competitors being more competitive on the plural than the singular.
Google those days become more and more smarter each single day or even every hour, so they have added english standing for there ranking factors so if you optimize for the word 'software' you will rank for 'program' as well, but the results various on different keywords and phrases... even though you are ranking for your keyword why would you care if it's with or without the (S) it doesn't matter at all.