Singular or Plural Search Terms?

So leaving the ‘SEO bullshit’ bullshit behind, here’s a serious non-bullshit post that anyone working in the transactional space should definitely read:

Plural or Singular search terms?

According to Robin Goad over at Hitwise, plural search terms accounted for more traffic to e-commerce sites than their singular counterparts. Robin uses data collected within the Hitwise app, so it’s safe to say the conclusions have high relevance from a search perspective.

So, while the results are not conclusive, it does seem that plural terms are better at sending traffic to retailers than singular terms. Two thirds of the products tested performed better as plurals, with technology products in particular skewing in favour of an added ‘s’. Indeed, the search term ‘mobile phones’ sent almost five times as much traffic Shopping and Classifieds sites as ‘mobile phone’, while for ‘digital cameras’ / ‘digital camera’ the ratio was 4:1.

Well worth a read – head over and check out his post.

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