Suppose I do SEO for 'dog', will this mean I'll also ranks for 'dogs' - or I have to do SEO for 'dogs' separately? On the same vein, what about wording like 'Japan/Japanese', or 'agency/agencies' - are they treated as the same or separate keyword, SEO-wise? What I'm curious is, if I put up two separate pages about 'dog' and 'dogs' up on the site, will google see it as spam? Any opinions on this?
I have noticed recently that within the Google Webmaster Tools for websites I work on, that Google is combining various spellings. For example: With the keyword "Parent", Google see's all of these variations as the same on our site: parent, parent's, parental, parented, parenting, parents.
Hi there I think you'll have to do it seperately. IF you seach each term, the SERPs are completely different.
Adwords guru Perry Marshall tells a story about how Glenn Livingston had analysed the difference between people searching for 'guinea pigs' and 'guinea pig' The answer was 2 weeks difference. People first search for guinea pigs to find out all about them. Then they search for 'guinea pig' two weeks later (on average) when they are ready to buy. So while search volume may be lower for singular - you may find more buyers searching. If you find this info helpful – clicking the star at the bottom left of my post here - will be appreciated. Thanks
If you optimize for "dog" you might rank for "dogs" also, but I find it is helpful to optimize for both.
I can do both keywords with no problem, but what I'm afraid is - if somehow google treat "dog" and "dogs" the same -> will they see these pages as spam? Or I'm too paranoid about that?
No, they won't treat it as SPAM!! while doing onpage SEO Just use the word "Dogs" Instead of "Dog" .. and while building backlinks concentrate on both ..
For Google dog is different than Dogs. So Singular and Plural keywords are totally different from each other. You should work on both.
I always check google trends for both the singular and plural version of the keyword(s) and choose accordingly, depending on the competition
If your content is relevant for both versions of the word, then you should focus on both keywords; if you optimize for 'dog' google will not rank you for 'dogs'.
I think you should work well on the website quality rather than concentrating on singulars and plurals. If you have a non-complicated user-friendly website, then you can rank well no matter what you use. Also, as 'yoes_san' says in his earlier comment, Google considers all the possible options, so it really doesn't matter too much.
Google spider are software not any human being, So that it can only decided wht it is programmed. therefore we have to optimized our site from both keyword for finding the better result.
You can use singular keywords and yet Google will recognize the plural word of that singular word. So, you don't have to use both singular and plural both to make it search engine friendly. It makes your website sour. And, Google is smart enough to recognize the plural word of almost every thing including our examples: Japanese and agencies. Google won't recognize 'dog' and 'dogs' as spam but, its good to use according to your sentence need. Just don't use 'dogs' instead of 'dog' to make is SEO optimized for both words. So, don't concentrate on plural and singular just make the quality content as possible as you can and rest of all will be fine.
It depends on the keyword some keyword singular is better but some keyword plural is better, use the one that we common use Or you can choose the one with higher search volume
Guess I'll start with one version of keyword then see if it covers both version, if not, I'll also do SEO for the other version then. Thanks for all input!