Spanish written accents and keywords

[te_c]

Dear All,

Using the keyword analysis tools, we found an interesting result: for one of our listings, which use in one word a spanish written accent "fotografía with í and not i", the report give us a "F" if the keyword is written without accent, and an "A" if it is written with the accent (we use the proper written word in the content and title).

It is only a SEOMoz tool related issue, or google take a word with accent as a different word? Most people write in the search engine without using the "´" character, and making some tests in google.es, I found slightly different results when writing in both ways, but not for my listing, which rank exactly in the same position for both "words".

Does anybody have some deeper information related to the topic?

Daniel

[donford]

Hi Daniel

This is how I ascertain how Google treats keywords. I go to adwords -> tools and analysis -> keyword tool

Search both terms, if they are considered different keywords they will have different traffic volumes. That doesn't mean Google will only return the specific keyword results for any given search, as Google always tries to return the most relevant results for each search, and over the years has gotten pretty good at understanding intent.

Attached is an example of your keyword which appears to be treated differently, and one of mine which appears to be treated the same.

I hope that makes sense and helps,

Don

fotografia.png

[te_c]

Hi Don,

Thanks for your answer. Sometimes keyword tools shows the same volume, and google trends shows different number of search for terms with and without accent. I try to avoid those words when possible.

Should one use the wrong word for difficult phrases for the sake of good search results? It looks unprofessional

[donford]

Just to follow up with you Daniel,

I would always use the correct spelling and hope that the search engines can determine a searches intent.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Howdy,

Google is much more sophisticated than the tools at SEOmoz, and can learn from searcher queries what is intended. It's not a perfect system, but it works pretty well.

As donford said, it's best to use the word/spelling that resonates best with your audience. Intentional mispellings to gain rankings don't really work these days, and as you noted, look unprofessional.

Also, if you have any trouble or questions about any the tools at SEOmoz, feel free to contact the experts on the Help Team at help@seomoz.org. Questions are free and they are awesome people.

[te_c]

To update a little about the issue.

The only safe way of measuring the effects of the international characters I have found so far is the google webmaster tools, in the search querys section. There one can find the ranking position for a specific keyword.

Unfortunatelly, Google treats both differently, are not the same.

In my case it is a small difference, 5 positions for a specific combination.

Thanks for your answers!

Daniel