If I insert a "stop" word into a long tail keyword, will it break it up?

[cgs230]

I'm in the legal industry, and a lot of the long tail keywords I'm finding are search queries that are pinpointed for my location. As a result, I come up with [subject] + [location] as good keywords... for example: "subpoena duces tecum new york." (basically it's a subpoena, just the fancy name). However, I have no clue how to use something like this in a sentence....if I say "subpoena duces tecum IN new york" does the "in" break up the keyword, or is "in" just a stop word that doesn't affect the keyword?

Countless examples of similar keywords "Car accident new york" etc.

Thanks!

[Lumina]

Yes, the word "in" would separate the keyword, though you technically would still get a reasonable amount of worth from the phrase in general. Some longtail keywords are incredibly difficult to get into content - it may be worthwhile to try to find ones that are high-volume and less abstract.

[rjonesx. 0]

Luckily with the Google Hummingbird update, Google is better able to map together phrases with identical search intent. "Car Accident New York" and "Car Accident in New York" return very similar search results, and you will see this across the board for very slightly modified long tail phrases. I would use the words and phrases in a syntactically and grammatically correct fashion, rather than focus on getting every variant.

[EGOL]

IMO "stop words" are a hoax.

[DonnaDuncan]

As Russ states, you're far better off to just use language naturally. Google will figure it out. Stop words aren't going to prevent you from outranking the competition. A combination of other factors will, most notably the quantity and quality of incoming links to the page.

[cgs230]

Thank you so much. You raise a question I've been having about Hummingbird and cannibalization, but I'm posting it right now in a separate thread

[Christy-Correll]

Welcome to the Moz community, Charles! Posting the question about Hummingbird and cannibalization in a new thread is a smart move, as it will likely get more attention that way. Assuming your new question is answered, it will also help people who have a similar question be able to find an answer that helps them (when they search this forum). So thanks for doing that.

Christy