Google Stop Words Explained! Don't Worry. Nothing to be concerned about!
I just saw a post by PatsyC ( https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co... ) about SEO Stop Words. I did not know about them and naturally searched about them on the net. To my surprise the information found on the net was confusing, contrasting and in some instants misguiding.
I found a huge stop words list containing more than 150 words on yoast.com
Reference url: https://kb.yoast.com/kb/list-s...
To test and investigate, I searched on google for the following terms
1. a dog
2. a cat
3. a dog and a cat
The results are here below. I have taken screenshots of the results.
1. a dog
2. a cat
3. a dog and a cat
The results show that the stop words are not that dangerous as they sound. You can use them for your keywords without any worry.
You would naturally ask. Then what are SEO Stop Words and why there is such confusion about them?
For this We have to go back to the past when it was ( yes it was and not is) part of the search engine algorithm (programming or rules) due to which the search engines typically ignored them to make the process of indexing fast when searching for the results. The search engine usually gave warnings when you would put something like "a dog and a cat" in quotes, stating that it contained stop words. And that was the reason that during that ancient time the search engine results were not that correct
To explain
if you typed "a dog" in the past, i.e., around 10 or 12 years ago! The search engine would search for dog. During this search, it would search for dog only and not for a. When it showed the results, it showed all the results, for dog whether or not associated with the so-called stop words.
More Explanation .. if you typed "a cat". It searched only for cat.
Similarly, if you typed "a dog and a cat", It would search for dog, cat and ignore a and a. It would draw all the results and sort them according to page rank, popularity, and links, etc. But when it showed results they would contain all the stop words shown in the lists.
Now due the advancement in technology, infrastructure, and improved programming Stop words are no more a cause for concern. The search engines can now show improved results due to their improved understanding of the so called stop words.
So don't worry and use the words, i.e., stop words, as intelligently as possible to convey clear and precise meanings. The stop words were (it were and not are) a headache for the Search Engine in past if it has a head.
I would share with you the following excellent articles; one of them from official Google blog for further reading.
http://www.seobythesea.com/200...
https://webmasters.googleblog....
That is my understanding if I am wrong then correct me and share your view below.
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Recent Comments
15
Great post! You are absolutely correct! If you do not include the stop words you will use in your post when searching for keywords, you will get different results than if you do. It's for this reason...search engines now take stop words into consideration.
Thank you,
Anita
Thnx. Actually, it is the evolution of search engine programming. With the passage of time search engines, especially Google is becoming better. And it is giving us better results.
Hi Riz,
I had no idea what they were and wrote that blog post to share and make other's aware. I was concerned at first but not anymore. I thought it didn't sense to me, and this is one of Google's senseless rules.
I'm glad I posted it since I had many comments from members who had no idea either or...who already knew about them.
As long as we continue to write helpful and quality content, it's all that matters.
It's good that you posted this to make members in your network aware also :)
Thnx. I also had no idea about them and when searched there was a lot of confusion online. so saw it appropriate to post.
You are welcome.
We think alike with sharing so our network can benefit.
I have shared a couple of posts from others also, and members are grateful for this.
I appreciate your thorough explanation, Riz. Not to use those so-called "stop words" would make a lot of keywords grammatically incorrect, which of course is a "no, no".
There are so many "do's" and "don't" but at the end of the day, we still need to use our brain to think things through.
A former boss would often say, "When you're doing something, ask yourself, 'Does it make sense?' "
Now how people would find about our post? They search on search engines. So you have to balance search engine optimization with intelligent use of words. You have to write good and at the same time it should be optimized to be displayed on search engine results. In that way you would be able to convey your message to masses more effectively.
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Yes very true, I was looking at a huge list of stop words and thinking "Man, if I don't include all of these, I won't have any keywords to use at all".
I do think there is a delicate balance though which can be seen quite easily in Jaxxy. If you have a basic keyword in Jaxxy like "What is meditation about" and it has 6000 searches and a competition of 40, but there is a keyword next to it which says "meditation about" with the exact same number of searches but a competition of 300. It is a good idea to try and break it down a bit more.
However, if you are trying to lower competition by eliminating every single stopword in your sentence, you will never find a good one.