{"id":61713,"date":"2022-02-22T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T06:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/general\/stemming-stoppwoerter-und-seo\/"},"modified":"2022-12-09T12:35:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T11:35:47","slug":"stemming-stop-words-and-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/customer-blog\/stemming-stop-words-and-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Stemming, Stop Words and SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/SEOStemming.png\" alt=\"Stemming, Stop Words and SEO\" class=\"no_lazy_load w-100 h-auto rounded size-full wp-image-32478\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p>House or houses, the house or just house &#8211; how do these small differences affect SEO? Stemming and stop words have been a controversial topic for search engine optimization for years. Is it worth paying attention to these nuances? Or are inflections, prepositions and articles irrelevant for a successful ranking on Google?<\/p>\r\n<!--more-->\r\n\r\n<h2>What is stemming?<\/h2>\r\n<p>Stemming stands for stem form reduction. This means that a word is reduced to the underlying root. This is because in language usage almost all words are inflected (bent) or given prefixes or suffixes. Examples:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>She runs, she ran &#8211; run<\/li>\r\n<li>bent &#8211; bend<\/li>\r\n<li>houses &#8211; house<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Stemming reduces this diversity when it comes only to the meaning of words. Stemming is a practical approach, especially for machines. Because for Google and Co. in particular, it doesn&#8217;t matter in most cases whether a text contains the term &#8220;house&#8221; or &#8220;houses&#8221;. When it comes to anticipating the intentions of people looking for a home, inflections can be neglected.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Rank better with keyword stemming?<\/h2>\r\n<p>Again and again it is claimed that the &#8220;stemming&#8221; of keywords has a positive effect on the ranking in Google. So, in order to achieve good positions for the keyword &#8220;house&#8221;, one would have to use terms like &#8220;houses&#8221;, &#8220;residential house&#8221; or &#8220;house construction&#8221; as often as possible. So if Google can recognize different variations of a word, it is purposeful to exploit this for SEO purposes.<\/p>\r\n<p>Keyword stemming as a ranking factor refers to Google&#8217;s ability to recognize different variations of the same word. In this context, keyword stemming means the targeted modification of the use of keywords with different inflections, prefixes and suffixes.<\/p>\r\n<p>Fact is that Google&#8217;s algorithms are becoming more and more perfect. Keyword: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/ai-glossary\/artificial-intelligence\/\" title=\"Artifical Intelligence - Term Explanation\">artificial intelligence<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/ai-glossary\/machine-learning\/\" title=\"Machine Learning - Term Explanation\">Machine learning<\/a> means that keyword stuffing is detected quicker. This includes the suspiciously frequent use of words in their basic form. Modern algorithms detect unnatural-looking language in seconds. In this respect, stemming seems to be advantageous.<\/p>\r\n<p>However, this also applies vice versa:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Intentional keyword stemming is also quickly detected.<\/li>\r\n<li>Unnatural-looking texts are not read. This leads to high abandonment rates, which Google also registers.<\/li>\r\n<li>Both keyword stuffing (with the inflationary frequent use of the base form of a word) and forced stemming involve more risks than opportunities.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>As so often with this topic, the conclusion is that content alone matters: Good texts are read with pleasure, and that is exactly what the largest search engine registers.<\/p>\r\n<p>This also explains the hypothesis that stemming promotes ranking. A good text naturally contains various inflections of a relevant keyword. However, the hypothesis of the SEO suitability of stemming confuses cause and effect. The readability of the text prevents dropouts. Google registers this &#8211; but stemming as such is not decisive for the positions on Google&#8217;s results list.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"pb-3\"><strong>Tip:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"pb-3\">Do you need lots of SEO texts, but have no resources free for their creation? clickworker delivers optimized texts &#8211; fast and quality-checked in all common languages.<\/p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickworker.com\/seo-content-services\/\" class=\"btn btn-primary\" role=\"button\">Have unique content for SEO written<\/a>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>What are stop words?<\/h2>\r\n<p>Stop words are words that play no or only a minor role for search engines. These are mainly articles and personal pronouns. Examples:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>the<\/li>\r\n<li>her, hers, him, his<\/li>\r\n<li>a, an<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>But also many adjectives, function words, particles and adverbs are ignored by search engine algorithms. These are, for example, words like:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>actually, mainly, overall<\/li>\r\n<li>than, until, before, after<\/li>\r\n<li>quite, on the other hand, in addition<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Also irrelevant are modal verbs such as &#8220;can&#8221;, &#8220;must&#8221; or &#8220;should&#8221;, which only have meaning in connection with another verb. But stop words are not always irrelevant. They often give a clue as to what a post is about. Sometimes even a single stop word can make the point of a text.<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Thus, although the sentence &#8220;To be or not to be&#8221; contains only stop words, it still makes sense.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>In a headline like &#8220;Search Engine Optimization without Keywords&#8221;, it is precisely the preposition &#8220;without&#8221; that determines the meaning and theme of an entire text.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h2>SEO with or without stop words?<\/h2>\r\n<p>For search engine optimizers, therefore, the question of how to deal with stop words inevitably arises. Does it make a difference whether the term &#8220;SEO in Munich&#8221; or just &#8220;SEO Munich&#8221; appears more frequently in a text? The answer is relatively simple.<\/p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>Basically, Google ignores stop words where they do not play a role in the analysis of meaning.<\/li>\r\n<li>This means that if stop words enhance the readability of a text, they should be used.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<p>The situation is quite different for meaningful stop words. For example, it makes a difference whether a flight goes &#8220;from Paris to New York&#8221; or &#8220;via Paris to New York&#8221;. But all these differences ultimately result from a natural use of language that is as exact as possible. At the latest since the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Timeline_of_Google_Search\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BERT update<\/a>, Google is once again paying more attention to the meaning of individual words in their context &#8211; and that includes stop words.<\/p>\r\n<p>So it is better to write naturally and understandably to avoid the risk of artificial-looking texts. The risk of being penalized is greater than any position improvement, no matter how small, through stop words.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\r\n<p>Stemming and stop words have very little significance for search engine optimization. Both aspects are rather an aspect of search engine perfection &#8211; with the well-known result that only content counts: Content is king. Google is getting better and better at recognizing good content &#8211; but also manipulation. In the end, it&#8217;s the user&#8217;s vote that matters. And that means for website operators: Forget stop words and stemming.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House or houses, the house or just house &#8211; how do these small differences affect SEO? Stemming and stop words have been a controversial topic for search engine optimization for years. Is it worth paying attention to these nuances? Or are inflections, prepositions and articles irrelevant for a successful ranking on Google?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[716,718,720],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stemming, Stop Words and SEO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SEO - Stemming and stop words have been a controversial topic for SEO for years. 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