Is it 'website' or web site' ???

I was using the SEO BOOk keyword suggestion tool for some keywords that I'm trying to rank for. . When I inputed the keywords [ie; "keyword1 + website+ design], the tool showed all the related keywords but there was space. IE; "keyword + web +site+ design]

My question is, are people typing "website" or "web site" into the SEs to find what they are looking for. Any thoughts on which is more popular? Common sense says that "website" would me more common but common sense is no longer common in the world of SEO

 

it's whatever you can rank for

 

when your type web site into google it says did you mean website
when your type website into google it says you spelled it right

however there is more competition for web site (12 mil results) than website (7 mil results)

so i really don;t know . . .

 

Technically, both spellings of the word are correct (according to Safari's dictionary widget).

You can always use the Keyword Suggestion Tool to compare: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

 

Merriam Webster says it's "web site"
Dictionary.com says it's both

Common sense tell me it can probably be both, but "web site" seems more logical.

 

Oddly enough a purist look at this (from a corporate style guide I have) is that it should be "Web site" with the 'w' capitalized because "Web" is a proper noun. With that said common usage is shifting it to a single word "website" and in the long run, "website" will become the preferred usage. Simply look at the number of results returned for the two methods by Google:

Website: 3,910,000,000 (http://www.google.com/search?q=allintext:++"website")
Web site: 2,870,000,000 (http://www.google.com/search?q=allintext:++"web+site")

With that said, here is a break down of how some major corporate and government entities (which presumably have strict style guides) refer to it:

Web site (with 'w' capitalized):
Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com;
Corel (http://www.corel.com/)
Ramada (http://www.ramada.com/) – A major US hotel chain

web site (all lower case):
The official Whitehouse website (http://www.whitehouse.gov)

website (single word):
The U.S. Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/)
American Red Cross (https://disastersafe.redcross.org/)
HTML Writers Guild (http://www.hwg.org/)
United Kingdom Parliament (http://www.parliament.uk/)

These were based on page one and page search engine results pages from Google.

Other notes:
The Washington Post, the Los Angels Times and the New York Times all use both "Web site" (with a capital 'W') and "website", but not "web site" (with lower case 'w').

To me it appears that using either "Web site" (with a capital 'W') or "website" is proper but using "web site" (with a lower case 'w') is not.

 

I generally go by website, but try to optimize for both keywords just incase.

 

KLB- Interesing insights there.

just to clarify, I'm trying to optimize for 'state + website +design' or web site or whatever it is.

so in this case, if we use common sense, I would reckon that the searcher would be inputing "website design" instead of "web site design" into the SEs. My logic is that someone who is in search of a web designer would believe that "website" is synomous with "designer" instead of "web site".

 

website is also 1 less character to type as a search phrase

 

Based on what I read somewhere (I think it may have been Wikipedia), both are valid. The original term was "Worldwide Web Site", which then was shortened to "web site", and ultimately, "website". For me personally, "website" is the one that makes most sense presently.

Sam

 

although, on the flipside of this are those people who are searching for 'web designer'. my particular research shows that there are about 300 people searching for 'state + web + designer". so if things aren't tougher than they currently are, i have to decide if i want to optimize for 'web designer". If I do, then I need to go for 'web site' instead of 'website'

 

Couldn't you optimize for both "web designer" and "website"? I find that I can typically optimize for up to three keywords per page without diluting the results in the SERPs.

HTH,
Sam

 

well anything is possible. but to optimize for, say "Chicago website design" and "chicago web designer" on one page can be tough. You have to remember that my company's name isn't the keyword themselves. It's always a delicate balance in this regards because I really don't like messing up my original webcopy. I'm a designer by trade with some decent webcopy writing skills and I know I will have to sacrifice some of my current webcopy to include these words. In fact, let me describe what the webcopy on my homepage is. It's only 5 sentencess. That's it. But damn, it's good copy. Even some of the copywriters I know like it. And copywriters can be critical. Who knows, maybe I should go pick the brains of some of the webcopy writers around here as well.

it's always a careful balance. i've looked at the competition and while their SEO is awesome [that goes w/o saying], their homepage navigation, usability, and webcopy are horrible. These are all important factors relating to conversion so I know I can outbeat these guys on those factors alone. It just comes down to how much webcopy that I want to sacrifice to achieve the rankings.

 

Dude...I FEEL YOUR PAIN. I would love to just be able to write my copy without any SEO considerations - just pure, unadulterated copy, that stands on its own merit. Paradoxically, the SE algorithms force us to do exactly what they don't want us to do - write copy with rankings in mind, instead of focusing exclusively on our visitors' experience. But until algorithms are developed that can think and reason like a human, I suppose we'll have to play the "compromise game".

Sam

 

Or just become better copywriters

Have you seen this? http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php

It's a good breakdown of the most important factors.

 

No, I hadn't seen it. I just skimmed it, but it looks to be very useful, and I've bookmarked it for future reference. It looks as if they've even included the fact that there's some disagreement on which SEO factors are most important, which is a refreshing change from the "this is the way things are" posts I'm used to seeing.

Thanks for the link.

Sam