Does Google Penalise bad spelling?
The question whether Google will penalise your website for intentionally (or unintentionally for that matter) including bad spelling has been debated ever since it became possible to make money from badly spelled words which a page has been optimised for.
Let’s quickly examine why so we can understand how it works. Let’s take a popular word like ‘Windows’ for example and misspell it as ‘Windows’. The moment we do that the contention ratio drops from several million to just 250,000 which suddenly makes your windows-related message and product much more visible.
In theory there is nothing wrong with all this. Some people do misspell the word ‘Windows’ by mistake on their websites and therefore optimise them by mistake. Searchers do misspell the word while they are searching and there have been well-documented cases where a misspelled world has drawn the kind of attention and traffic that generated several thousand dollars as a result.
So, what’s the fuss? Good question and the answer lies with that area between White Hate SEO and Black Hat SEO. Deliberately misspelling a word in order to cash in on the number of people who misspell it is Grey Hat SEO and the jury is still out.
Because it is not entirely ethical and because it leads to abuse (there are sites for example which try to cash in on popular misspellings of Google), Google will always serve the correct spelling of a word higher than the wrong spelling and it is possible that the algorithm penalises websites where a large number of misspelled words appear or a particular word has been misspelled a number of times.
Google is spending a large amount of money in delivering, focused, relevant results to searchers. As a result anything that detracts from that or manipulates the results is, eventually, going to be penalised. I suspect the reason as I am writing this (October 2007) that this has not yet happened yet is because the algorithm is not yet fine-tuned enough to be able to differentiate between legitimate misspellings and Black Hat sites, but it is weighted against misspellings, precisely because of this.
Beyond that the very fact that you have a website means that you have the digital equivalent of a shop which means that you cannot possibly expect people to take you seriously and give you money if you have a lot of misspelled words on your site.
So what can you do in order to make sure your website content is absolutely spot on?
1. Use a spell checker before you post any content on your website. Copy and paste the content in Word and turn the spell checking and grammar on.
2. Get a friend to go through your site as a customer, reading every word and spotting mistakes.
3. Check again to make sure that you have written makes sense and conveys a good image of your online store.
4. While we are in the ‘Grey’ area there is nothing wrong in capitalising on misspellings if money is to be made of it. Have a specifically created page on your website which says, for instance, something like: “Hi, the reason you are seeing this page is because you typed in [misspelled word] when you are really looking for: [correct spelling of word]. Please click here to be taken to the page you are looking for.” By doing this you can avoid appearing like a spammer and still capitalise on searchers’ misspellings. Be warned that you can really only use this technique safely for one or two words. Try if for more than that and Google will probably flag your site up.
Summary: Misspelled words can hurt your site’s SEO status and will definitely affect sales with regular online visitors. If you want to capitalise on misspelled words follow the final point made above.
Action plan: Run your site’s content through a spell checker. Go through each of the points above and make sure that the image conveyed by the words you use is nothing less than the best you can possibly make it.
For more information on SEO Help and how it can help you optimize your own website see any of the links below:
http://www.amazon.com/SEO-Help-Optimization-website-Googles/dp/1844819965
http://www.webdirectstudio.com/books-for-online-business-success
http://www.helpmyseo.com/seo-blog/182-seo-help-book-on-sale-in-the-netherlands-and-amazons-kindle-store.html
http://www.canadianwebdirectory.com/seo-help-book-gets-your-website-to-the-first-page-of-google/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SEO-Help-to-get-your-website-on-the-first-page-of-Google/279344396254
http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/?act=68635240#!/pages/SEO-Help-to-get-your-website-on-the-first-page-of-Google/279344396254
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Seo-Help/David-Amerland/e/9781844819966
http://www.amazon.co.uk/SEO-Help-Steps-Website-Googles/dp/1844819965
http://internetmarketingedu.com/seo-help-20-search-engine-optimization-steps-to-get-your-website-to-googles-1-page/
http://www.helpmyseo.com/seo-help-the-book.html
http://www.squidoo.com/seothatmakessense
http://www.imri.in/books/seo-help-20-seo-steps-get-your-website-google-1-page-david-amerland
http://www.toolsntricks.com/seo-help-20-search-engine-optimization-steps-to-get-your-website-to-googles-1-page
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/david+amerland/seo+help/7449332/
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2792100/seo_help_20_steps_to_take_your_website.html?cat=3
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