noone wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is it possible to find out whether most people use the singular or the
> plural version of a search phrase, when they search for it on Google?
It depends on the word/s. Unless the search engine exposes its statistics
(very unlikely), there is no way of knowing for sure. Looking at the number
of results for each will tell you something about expectancy.
> The Overture search term suggestion tool doesn't consider singular/plural.
> It only shows the singular version of the search phrase (which contains
> two words), even if I type in the search phrase in plural.
When we studied Web and Hypermedia 2 years ago we were taught that stemming
was quite a global thing. Apparently Google have taken a step ahead since
then, which is good. So, that's a nice observation you made.
> My position for the plural version is worse, so I thought about making
> some optimizations for the singular. And they do seem to distinguish
> between singular and plural. Searching for the two different phrases gives
> me different results.
>
> /Mike
>
> MHC Synthesizers and Effects
> http://www.mhc.se
You can try to estimate which phrases will give you better results. This can
be hard though. You must take into consideration many factors: change in
competitors' Web sites, change in your own site, change in the algorithm of
the search engine, and crawling.
Go with the gut feeling.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com
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