Singular and Plural keywords in titles

Widget / Widgets

[GodLikeLotus]

I am noticing that our directory pages rank top in the UK for "widgets in widgetville" because the words appear in the page title, however for "widget in widgetville" we are much lower. Is it ok to change the title to "Widget / Widgets in Widgetville"? It does make the title not read as well but should help improve the positioning. Anyone have any comments about this? My experience tells me that the title is much more important than the text on the page, providing your site has some good incoming links with well worded anchor text. Starting to think I have answered my own question here but we like some reassurances.

[ciml]

> Is it ok to change the title to "Widget / Widgets in Widgetville"?

Yes in my opinion, but it's not ideal.

Before Google, AltaVista liked to have the words, rather than phrases, in the title. The title above would have been fine.

Because of the proximity bonus [webmasterworld.com] in Google (equivalent to a default "NEAR" operator in the pre-Google AltaVista days), you might want to have "Widgets in Widgetville" and "Widget in Widgetville" as phrases for best effect.

This might lead you to pick different pages for the two phrases (as I have often done), but over the last few months Google have seemed to place far greater importance in how many links from other domains use your target words (rather than how much PageRank).

If most of the links from other domains are to our homepage, then we seem to be encouraged to use something like "Widget in Widgetville / Widgets in Widgetville" as our title. There comes a point where it becomes inelegant, so it's often a comprimise.

[2_much]

Yeah, that's a problem I always face. When trying to choose a primary keyword, I type the singular and plural form in Google to see which one comes up with the most number of pages. But the, that isn't reflective of what people search for, just what people thing people search for. So I always wonder what's the best approach. I love the idea of using both in the index page, since that is where most of our inbound links are directed.

[sublime1]

I think it can be said conslusively that plurals (and any other word forms) do matter. Google does not "stem" -- some search engines normalize forms of words such that distinctions between singular and plural, past, present and future, etc, are lost.

However, it may not be the best idea to make your title say "Widget / Widgets for Sale". While this might potentially cause Google to give it a higher rank for more queries, when users are presented with results, the title is the main thing they see.

While title is important, other elements are also important (headings, bold, etc.). Why not try to mix up plurals and singulars to approimate the balance of incoming query volume?

[customdy]

this has worked fairly well for us as we have the same problem with the title.

Custom Widgets - Company Name - Custom Widget

Still Doen't flow perfectly but...

[darkroom]

guys i got some questions..
.i have a new site going live very soon....it contains about 50 different products...in this site, i have created 50 different pages for these 50 products. So, in a way it contains 51 pages(50 product pages + index page). Now would it be better to purchase 50 differnt domains for each of these products and build a 3-5 pages for each site? or should i just go with one site and try to build as many pages as i can (ofcourse containing meaninful text)?
Another question is :
Even though index.html has the greatest PR, Does google favour the index.html page over the rest of the subpages/subcategory pages? So, for example, is domain.com/index.html favourable over domain.com/keyword.html or domain.com/keyword/keyword.html?

[Chicago]

would it be better to purchase 50 differnt domains for each of these products

darkroom, carefully step down from the ledge.

[mil2k]

Even though index.html has the greatest PR, Does google favour the index.html page over the rest of the subpages/subcategory pages?

Google does not favour index.html because it likes it but bcoz it generally has maximum no. of inbound links. If you can direct good no. of inbound links (with suitable anchor text) to your domain.com/keyword.html or domain.com/keyword/keyword.html? page then no reason why it should not rank higher. HTH :)

I think this question should have been asked in a separate thread.