Plural versus singular keyword terms...

[gdavies09031977]

Hi all,

I am managing the SEO for my company. We operate in a small niche market in the UK, and so our online optimisation is proving fairly successful for our main key terms as there is not a vast amount of competition and our website is well established.

However I am noticing a difference in ranking position (and quoted search volume - as per Google Adwords) depending on whether the optimised terms is in its singular or plural version.

Now I can understand this where the difference in the plural or singular version may lead to a different search requirement by the user. E.g. as quoted by Rand elsewhere on this forum "Microsoft Office" and "Microsoft Offices" are quite different in what the user is looking for.

However for our terms the users search requirements must be identical for the singular or plural. One example is "stainless steel shower tray" versus "stainless steel shower trays", we have optimised for both now, but still rank differently for each, by a couple of places.

Why does Google treat these terms differently, when users entering the terms can only be looking for the same thing?

Also, Google (in Adwords) seems to show different search volumes for the singular versus the plural. For most of the search terms, the singular seems to have more volume. Does anyone know how this is working in Adwords - i.e. is Google saying, for example, 150 searches per month for "stainless steel shower tray" and 100 separate searches for "stainless steel shower trays" (i.e. 250 in total), or 150 searches per month using a search terms that contains "stainless steel shower tray", of which 100 are "stainless steel shower trays" (i.e. 150 in total)?

Thanks in advance,

Gareth

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

This is curious in fact, and I have my own philosophies on this in the e-commerce space. It is just my opinion, but I believe singular to be informational intent and plural to be transactional.

For example, "shower tray" to me insinuates a search for factual information about the object. Like someone looking for a description or definition.

But "shower trays" to me insinuates someone looking for a section of trays, like an assortment to choose from.

I do take the singular and plural to be two different searches, but like I said no facts behind this, just my feeling about it.

-Dan

[gdavies09031977]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply. I see your thinking, but I guess it can be argued both ways; e.g. it could be argued that if someone is looking to purchase an 'item', they might search in the singular, e.g. "I want a shower tray", whereas if they are looking for information, they might search for it in the plural, e.g. "information on shower trays".

In all honesty though, I think it comes down to the individual and the way they think when entering a search. If they think in more of a first person/self-serving kind of way, when they search, they might want to "buy a shower tray", whereas if they think in more of a third person/generalist kind of way, they might search for someone who "sells shower trays". Whether most of the population fall into the former or latter groups perhaps depends on culture and may differ from country to country. Certainly in the UK, the larger search volumes seem to lie with the singular (for our keywords at least).

I guess the question really though, is whether Google makes a similar differentiation as any of our theories above, as it clearly gives different ranking positions for plural and singular versions.

Gareth