widget or widgets

when to use plural in keyword

[linuxguy]

Is there an effective way to decide on wheter to use single or plural keywords? I usually try to see for which one Googles returns more results but I gues there could be a better way.

[mona]

Google uses stemming when they rank pages.

Word Variations (stemming)
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for "pet lemur dietary needs", google will also search for "pet lemur diet needs", and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.

I use variations of the word on my pages now. In the title, I use whichever variant makes for a more "clickable" title. I'm sure others have a lot to say about this topic, though. You can also do a google search for site:webmasterworld.com google stemming, there is a lot written about this topic.

[YSMeditor]

For YSM, choose the singular (i.e. 'widgets' maps to 'widget'). However, you'll want to modify your titles and descriptions so they read with the plural form of the keyword.